LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 


LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 


BY 


LAFCADIO  HEARN 


SELECTED  AND  EDITED  WITH 
AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

JOHN  ERSKINE,  Ph.D. 

Professor  of  English  in  Columbia  University 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

1917 


Copyright,  1917 
By  MITCHELL  McDONALD 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Introduction vii 

I     On  Reading  in  Relation  to  Literature  i 

II     On  the  Relation  of  Life  and  Character  to  Lit- 
erature       21 

III  On  Composition 43 

IV  Note  upon  the  Abuse  and  Use  of  Literary  Socie- 

ties         69 

V     Literary  Genius  (A  Fragment) 77 

VI  On  Modern  English  Criticism,  and  the  Contem- 
porary Relations  of  English  to  French  Lit- 
erature       80 

VII  The  Prose  of  Small  Things 108 

VIII  The  Poetry  of  George  Meredith 129 

IX  George  Borrow 181 

X  Note  upon  Rossetti's  Prose 188 

XI  Thomas  Lovell  Beddoes 200 

XII  The  Victorian  Spasmodics 205 

XIII  The  Poetry  of  Lord  De  Tabley 228 

XIV  Note  on  Some  French  Romantics 246 

XV  Some  French  Poems  on  Insects 266 

XVI     Note  upon  an  Ugly  Subject 284 

XVII     Tolstoi's  Theory  of  Art 288 

XVIII     Note  upon  Tolstoi's  "Resurrection"     ....  300 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  pAGE 

XIX    Some  Poems  on  Death 308 

XX     Some  Fairy  Literature 324 

XXI     The  Most  Beautiful  Romance  of  the  Middle 

Ages 340 

XXII    Ionica 352 

XXIII     Old  Greek  Fragments 377 


INTRODUCTION 

This  volume  contains  a  third  selection  from  the  lectures 
which  Lafcadio  Hearn  delivered  at  the  University  of  Tokyo 
between  1896  and  1902.  An  account  of  these  lectures  and 
of  the  remarkable  student  notes  in  which  they  were  pre- 
served, is  given  in  the  Introductions  to  the  first  selection, 
"Interpretations  of  Literature,"  1915,  and  to  the  second 
selection,  "Appreciations  of  Poetry,"  1916.  It  should  be 
said  again,  for  the  information  of  those  who  may  read  this 
present  volume  without  acquaintance  with  the  others,  that 
Lafcadio  Hearn  lectured  very  slowly,  choosing  simple  words 
and  constructions,  in  order  to  make  the  foreign  language  as 
easy  as  possible  to  his  Japanese  students"; \  and  some  of  his 
students  managed  to  take  down  many  of  his  lectures  word 
for  word.  From  their  notes — the  only  record  we  have  of 
Lafcadio  Hearn  the  teacher — the  present  volume,  like  its 
predecessors,  is  selected. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  speak  again  of  the  service  Lafcadio 
Hearn  rendered  to  the  West  by  his  interpretations  of  Japan, 
nor  of  the  service  he  rendered  to  the  East  in  these  lectures  on 
Western  literature.  The  editor  would  call  attention  once 
more,  however,  to  the  extraordinary  quality  of  these  lectures 
simply  as  literary  criticism.  Had  they  been  addressed  to  an 
American  audience,  they  would  not  have  suggested,  as  they 
now  do,  the  lonely  and  romantic  adventure  of  Western  cul- 
ture in  the  Japanese  classroom ;  but  they  would  still  have  de- 
served our  attention  as  one  of  the  finest  illustrations — cer- 
tainly the  illustration  on  the  largest  scale  in  English — of 
that  kind  of  criticism  which  tries  to  interpret  rather  than  to 
pass  sentence.     To  be  sure,  a  sympathetic  explanation,  in 

art  as  in  life,  may  imply  a  verdict,  but  with  Hearn  the 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

implication  remained  secondary  to  the  sympathy  and  the 
understanding.  His  attitude  is  the  usual  one  among  crea- 
tive artists ;  it  is  in  grateful  contrast  with  both  the  academic 
and  the  journalistic  schools  of  criticism  today,  which  light 
up  their  verdicts  with  artificial  emphasis,  and  leave  sympa- 
thy and  understanding — shall  we  say,  imagination1? — in  sub- 
dued shadow.  The  present  editor,  therefore,  does  not 
expect  all  readers  to  agree  with  him  now  that  these  volumes 
of  Lafcadio  Hearn's  are  among  the  best  examples  of  the 
soundest  kind  of  criticism;  but  he  hopes  for  a  day  when  such 
praise  will  seem  not  extreme.  The  pigeon-holing  type  of 
criticism,  having  its  central  roots  in  mediocrity,  is  likely  to 
survive  the  assaults  of  common  sense,  but  its  prestige  is  wan- 
ing, and  it  may  be  forced  to  surrender  the  high  place  it  has 
long  usurped.  Certainly  the  appreciation  of  literature  has 
not  prospered  under  the  tradition  which,  having  fixed  a  label 
on  a  book,  would  dispose  of  it  like  a  jar  of  jam — all  of  one 
kind  on  the  same  shelf.  When  this  tendency  is  benevolent, 
it  enables  a  trained  scholar  to  call  each  new  novel  by  a 
generic  name — for  him  it  is  a  Henry  James  novel,  or  a  How- 
ells  novel,  or  an  Arnold  Bennett  novel;  and  similarly  the 
habit  of  labelling  books  enables  the  journalistic  critic  at 
his  best  to  recognize  an  O.  Henry  story  or  a  Don  Marquis 
poem.  But  the  particular  qualities  of  the  work  thus  pigeon- 
holed, neither  the  trained  labeller  nor  the  journalistic  recog- 
nizer seems  to  be  interested  in.  Moreover,  the  trained 
scholar  and  the  journalistic  critic  are  not  always  at  their 
best;  and  at  their  worst — as  in  their  clash  over  the  new 
poetry  in  America  today — their  sentence-pronouncing  habit 
degenerates  into  an  orgy  of  scorn,  in  which  the  older  readers 
pour  disdain  upon  the  wreckers  and  the  experimenters,  and 
the  younger  generation  gesticulate  contempt  at  the  old  fo- 
gies, and  neither  side  furnishes  a  good  reason  for  its  preju- 
dice. Is  it  rash  to  hope  that  common  sense  will  at  last  per- 
suade us  to  understand  books — or  at  least  to  try  to  under- 
stand them — before  we  judge  them?     And  if  we  once  un- 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

derstand  a  great  work  of  art,  or  even  a  minor  work  of  art, 
shall  we  still  think  it  so  necessary  to  label  the  work  great  or 
minor'? 

Lafcadio  Hearn  says  simply  that  the  object  of  criticism 
is  to  find  out  why  you  like  a  book  or  why  you  dislike  it; 
the  good  qualities  of  a  book  he  defines  in  terms  of  its  truth 
to  lifej  and  for  an  impartial  index  as  to  whether  the  book 
is  true  to  life,  he  would  accept  the  opinion  of  generations  of 
men.  No  book  entirely  bad  can,  he  thinks,  become  famous ; 
unless  men  could  recognize  in  it  some  experience  of  their 
own,  they  would  not  read  it  permanently.  If  the  sceptic 
should  say,  This  simple  theory  does  well  enough  for  books 
already  famous,  but  how  shall  I  judge  a  new  book4? — Hearn 
would  answer  that  the  study  of  famous  books,  where  life  is 
truly  represented,  helps  us  to  recognize  life  itself,  by  de- 
veloping in  us  a  more  sensitive  memory,  a  livelier  imagina- 
tion, until  we  are  quick  to  recognize  truth  to  experience  even 
in  a  new  and  unheralded  work.  The  prosperity  of  a  book, 
in  short,  lies  not  in  its  conformity  to  any  outward  tradition, 
but  to  its  reflection  of  the  reader's  experience.  Sound  criti- 
cism is  for  Hearn  identical  with  thoughtful  reading;  the  art 
of  reading  or  of  criticism  is  simply  the  art  of  discriminating 
among  one's  experiences.  Turning  the  idea  about,  Hearn 
would  define  literature — in  so  far  as  it  is  a  fine  art — as  the 
best  expression  of  the  most  intimate  experiences.  'Tn  all 
my  lectures,"  he  says,  "I  have  never  failed,  when  I  had  the 
opportunity,  to  remind  you  that  literature  is  not  the  art  of 
writing  books,  but  the  art  of  expressing  feeling — feeling, 
which  means  everything  noble  as  well  as  everything  common 
in  human  life."  He  is  at  pains  to  explain  that  by  "feeling" 
he  means  emotion,  not  sensation. 

This  theory  of  criticism  implies  a  large  hospitality  toward 
every  kind  of  book,  and  Lafcadio  Hearn  was  one  of  the 
most  generous  and  most  patient  of  readers.  He  could  find 
the  virtues  even  of  the  types  of  literature  toward  which  his 
temperament  did  not  dispose  him,  and  though  in  his  own 


x  INTRODUCTION 

writing  he  was  one  of  the  most  painstaking  of  artists,  he 
could  value  the  potential  good  even  in  books  crudely  ex- 
pressed. The  casual  way  in  which  these  lectures  were  re- 
corded, and  the  fact  that  he  had  no  opportunity  to  revise 
them,  will  account  for  certain  lapses  of  style,  certain  exag- 
gerations of  statement,  such  as  his  just  taste  would  deplore. 
But  these  defects  in  the  record  do  not  impair  the  theory  nor 
the  spirit  of  these  volumes.  To  one  who  has  read  them  con- 
secutively, the  abiding  impression  is  of  a  noble  and  continu- 
ous discrimination,  a  sustained  sympathy,  day  after  day, 
year  after  year,  toward  good  books  of  all  sorts,  whether  con- 
temporary or  long  published. 

A  theory  of  life  and  of  art  so  romantic  as  his,  with  such 
emphasis  upon  the  possibilities  of  adventure,  might  have 
lent  itself  to  shallowness  or  to  impressionism,  had  it  not 
been  sustained  in  Lafcadio  Hearn  by  a  self-discipline  almost 
beyond  the  rigour  of  classicism.  Again  and  again  he  re- 
minds us  that  the  enjoyment  of  art,  like  the  enjoyment  of 
life,  is  itself  an  art;  he  never  fails,  when  speaking  of  his  be- 
loved romantics,  to  show  that  their  freedom  was  either  an 
achievement  or  a  failure ;  he  has  no  use  for  the  books  which 
can  be  drained  in  one  reading;  he  likes  best  poets  like  Mere- 
dith or  Rossetti,  whose  crowded  lines  repay  study.  The 
note  of  discipline  on  every  page  of  his  lectures  gives  even  his 
slighter  moments  an  undertone  of  character,  so  that  when 
he  speaks  specifically  of  the  moral  function  of  art,  he  seems 
not  to  introduce  a  new  theme,  but  to  put  finally  into  words 
what  we  were  waiting  for  him  to  say. 

It  remains  only  to  add  that  in  preparing  this  volume  the 
editor  tried,  as  in  the  other  volumes,  to  verify  all  the  quota- 
tions, dates,  and  allusions.  If  errors  have  escaped  him,  he 
must  plead  the  condition  of  the  manuscripts,  which  in  these 
chapters  were  full  of  perplexities.  In  reading  the  proofs  he 
has  again  had  the  kind  assistance  of  Pay  Director  Mitchell 
McDonald,  U.  S.  N.,  literary  executor  of  Lafcadio  Hearn 
— and  his  friend. 


LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 


CHAPTER  I 
ON  READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

As  the  term  approaches  its  close,  I  wish  to  keep  my  promise 
regarding  a  series  of  lectures  relating  to  literary  life  and 
work,  to  be  given  independently  of  texts  or  authorities,  and 
to  represent,  as  far  as  possible,  the  results  of  practical  ex- 
perience among  the  makers  of  literature  in  different  coun- 
tries. The  subject  for  this  term  will  be  Reading — appar- 
ently, perhaps,  a  very  simple  subject,  but  really  not  so 
simple  as  it  looks,  and  much  more  important  than  you  may 
think  it.  I  shall  begin  this  lecture  by  saying  that  very 
few  persons  know  how  to  read.  Considerable  experience 
with  literature  is  needed  before  taste  and  discrimination  can 
possibly  be  acquired ;  and  without  these,  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  learn  how  to  read.  I  say  almost  impossible;  since 
there  are  some  rare  men  who,  through  a  natural  inborn 
taste,  through  a  kind  of  inherited  literary  instinct,  are  able 
to  read  very  well  even  before  reaching  the  age  of  twenty- 
five  years.  But  these  are  great  exceptions,  and  I  am  speak- 
ing of  the  average. 

For,  to  read  the  characters  or  the  letters  of  the  text  does 
not  mean  reading  in  the  true  sense.  You  will  often  find 
yourselves  reading  words  or  characters  automatically,  even 
pronouncing  them  quite  correctly,  while  your  minds  are 
occupied  with  a  totally  different  subject.  This  mere 
mechanism  of  reading  becomes  altogether  automatic  at  an 
early  period  of  life,  and  can  be  performed  irrespective  of 
attention.  Neither  can  I  call  it  reading  to  extract  the 
narrative  portion  of  a  text  from  the  rest  simply  for  one's 
personal  amusement,  or,  in  other  words,  to  read  a  book 
"for  the  story."     Yet  most  of  the  reading  that  is  done  in 

the  world  is  done  in  exactly  this  way.     Thousands  and 

1 


9,  ON  READING 

thousands  of  books  are  bought  every  year,  every  month,  I 
might  even  say  every  day,  by  people  who  do  not  read  at 
all.  They  only  think  that  they  read.  They  buy  books 
just  to  amuse  themselves,  "to  kill  time,"  as  they  call  it; 
in  one  hour  or  two  their  eyes  have  passed  over  all  the 
pages,  and  there  is  left  in  their  minds  a  vague  idea  or  two 
about  what  they  have  been  looking  at ;  and  this  they  really 
believe  is  reading.  Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  be 
asked,  "Have  you  read  such  a  book4?"  or  to  hear  somebody 
say,  "I  have  read  such  and  such  a  book."  But  these  per- 
sons do  not  speak  seriously.  Out  of  a  thousand  persons 
who  say,  "I  have  read  this,"  or  "I  have  read  that,"  there 
is  not  one  perhaps  who  is  able  to  express  any  opinion  worth 
hearing  about  what  he  has  been  reading.  Many  and  many 
a  time  I  hear  students  say  that  they  have  read  certain 
books;  but  if  I  ask  them  some  questions  regarding  the  book, 
I  find  that  they  are  not  able  to  make  any  answer,  or  at 
best,  they  will  only  repeat  something  that  somebody  else 
has  said  about  what  they  think  that  they  have  been  read- 
ing. But  this  is  not  peculiar  to  students;  it  is  in  all 
countries  the  way  that  the  great  public  devour  books.  And 
to  conclude  this  introductory  part  of  the  lecture,  I  would 
say  that  the  difference  between  the  great  critic  and  the 
common  person  is  chiefly  that  the  great  critic  knows  how 
to  read,  and  that  the  common  person  does  not.  No  man 
is  really  able  to  read  a  book  who  is  not  able  to  express  an 
original  opinion  regarding  the  contents  of  a  book. 

No  doubt  you  will  think  that  this  statement  of  the  case 
confuses  reading  with  study.  You  might  say,  "When  we 
read  history  or  philosophy  or  science,  then  we  do  read 
very  thoroughly,  studying  all  the  meanings  and  bearings 
of  the  text,  slowly,  and  thinking  about  it.  This  is  hard 
study.  But  when  we  read  a  story  or  a  poem  out  of  class- 
hour,  we  read  for  amusement.  Amusement  and  study  are 
two  different  things."  I  am  not  sure  that  you  all  think 
this;  but  young  men  generally  do  so  think.     As  a  matter 


ON  READING  3 

of  fact,  every  book  worth  reading  ought  to  be  read  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  way  that  a  scientific  book  is  read — not 
simply  for  amusement;  and  every  book  worth  reading  should 
have  the  same  amount  of  value  in  it  that  a  scientific  book 
has,  though  the  value  may  be  of  a  totally  different  kind. 
For,  after  all,  the  good  book  of  fiction  or  romance  or 
poetry  is  a  scientific  work;  it  has  been  composed  according 
to  the  best  principles  of  more  than  one  science,  but  espe- 
cially according  to  the  principles  of  the  great  science  of 
life,  the  knowledge  of  human  nature. 

In  regard  to  foreign  books,  this  is  especially  true;  but 
the  advice  suggested  will  be  harder  to  follow,  when  we 
read  in  a  language  which  is  not  our  own.  Nevertheless, 
how  many  Englishmen  do  you  suppose  really  read  a  good 
book  in  English?  how  many  Frenchmen  read  a  great  book 
in  their  own  tongue?  Probably  not  more  than  one  in  two 
thousand  of  those  who  think  that  they  read.  What  is 
more,  although  there  are  now  published  every  year  in  Lon- 
don upwards  of  six  thousand  books,  at  no  time  has  there 
been  so  little  good  reading  done  by  the  average  public  as 
today.  Books  are  written,  sold,  and  read  after  a  fashion 
— or  rather  according  to  the  fashion.  There  is  a  fashion 
in  literature  as  well  as  in  everything  else;  and  a  particular 
kind  of  amusement  being  desired  by  the  public,  a  particular 
kind  of  reading  is  given  to  supply  the  demand.  So  useless 
have  become  to  this  public  the  arts  and  graces  of  real  litera- 
ture, the  great  thoughts  which  should  belong  to  a  great 
book,  that  men  of  letters  have  almost  ceased  to  produce  J-  " 
true  literature.  When  a  man  can  obtain  a  great  deal  of 
money  by  writing  a  book  without  style  or  beauty,  a  mere 
narrative  to  amuse,  and  knows  at  the  same  time  that  if 
he  should  give  three,  five,  or  ten  years  to  the  production 
of  a  really  good  book,  he  would  probably  starve  to  death, 
he  is  forced  to  be  untrue  to  the  higher  duties  of  his  pro- 
fession. Men  happily  situated  in  regard  to  money  mat- 
ters, might  possibly  attempt  something  great  from  time  to 


4  ON  READING 

time ;  but  they  can  hardly  get  a  hearing.  Taste  is  so  much 
deteriorated  within  the  past  few  years,  that,  as  I  told  you 
before,  style  has  practically  disappeared — andjstyk  means 
thinking.  And  this  state  of  things  in  England  has  been 
largely  brought  about  by  bad  habits  of  reading,  by  not 
knowing  how  to  read. 

For  the  first  thing  which  a  scholar  should  bear  in  mind 
is  that  a  book  ought  not  to  be  read  for  mere  amusement. 
Half-educated  persons  read  for  amusement,  and  are  not  to 
be  blamed  for  it;  they  are  incapable  of  appreciating  the 
deeper  qualities  that  belong  to  a  really  great  literature. 
But  a  young  man  who  has  passed  through  a  course  of  uni- 
versity training  should  discipline  himself  at  an  early  day 
never  to  read  for  mere  amusement.  And  once  the  habit  of 
the  discipline  has  been  formed,  he  will  even  find  it  impos- 
sible to  read  for  mere  amusement.  He  will  then  impa- 
tiently throw  down  any  book  from  which  he  cannot  obtain 
intellectual  food,  any  book  which  does  not  make  an  appeal 
to  the  higher  emotions  and  to  his  intellect.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  the  habit  of  reading  for  amusement  becomes 
with  thousands  of  people  exactly  the  same  kind  of  habit 
as  wine-drinking  or  opium-smoking;  it  is  like  a  narcotic, 
something  that  helps  to  pass  the  time,  something  that  keeps 
up  a  perpetual  condition  of  dreaming,  something  that  event- 
ually results  in  destroying  all  capacity  for  thought,  giving 
exercise  only  to  the  surface  parts  of  the  mind,  and  leaving 
the  deeper  springs  of  feeling  and  the  higher  faculties  of  per- 
ception unemployed. 

Let  us  simply  state  what  the  facts  are  about  this  kind  of 
reading.  A  young  clerk,  for  example,  reads  every  day  on 
the  way  to  his  office  and  on  the  way  back,  just  to  pass 
the  time;  and  what  does  he  read1?  A  novel,  of  course;  it 
is  very  easy  work,  and  it  enables  him  to  forget  his  troubles 
for  a  moment,  to  dull  his  mind  to  all  the  little  worries  of 
his  daily  routine.  In  one  day  or  two  days  he  finishes  the 
novel;  then  he  gets  another.     He  reads  quickly  in  these 


ON  READING  5 

days.  By  the  end  of  the  year  he  has  read  between  a  hundred 
and  fifty  and  two  hundred  novels;  no  matter  how  poor  he 
is,  this  luxury  is  possible  to  him,  because  of  the  institution 
of  circulating  libraries.  At  the  end  of  a  few  years  he  has 
read  several  thousand  novels.  Does  he  like  them'?  No; 
he  will  tell  you  that  they  are  nearly  all  the  same,  but  they 
help  him  to  pass  away  his  idle  time;  they  have  become  a 
necessity  for  him;  he  would  be  very  unhappy  if  he  could 
not  continue  this  sort  of  reading.  It  is  utterly  impossible 
that  the  result  can  be  anything  but  a  stupefying  of  the 
faculties.  He  can  not  even  remember  the  names  of  twenty 
or  thirty  books  out  of  thousands;  much  less  does  he  remem- 
ber what  they  contain.  The  result  of  all  this  reading  means 
nothing  but  a  cloudiness  in  his  mind.  That  is  the  direct 
result.  The  indirect  result  is  that  the  mind  has  been  kept 
from  developing  itself.  All  development  necessarily  means 
some  pain;  and  such  reading  as  I  speak  of  has  been  employed 
unconsciously  as  a  means  to  avoid  that  pain,  and  the  con- 
sequence is  atrophy. 

Of  course  this  is  an  extreme  case;  but  it  is  the  ulti- 
mate outcome  of  reading  for  amusement  whenever  such 
amusement  becomes  a  habit,  and  when  there  are  means 
close  at  hand  to  gratify  the  habit.  At  present  in  Japan 
there  is  little  danger  of  this  state  of  things;  but  I  use  the 
illustration  for  the  sake  of  its  ethical  warning. 

This  does  not  mean  that  there  is  any  sort  of  good  litera- 
ture which  should  be  shunned.  A  good  novel  is  just  as 
good  reading  as  even  the  greatest  philosopher  can  possibly 
wish  for.  The  whole  matter  depends  upon  the  way  of 
reading,  even  more  than  upon  the  nature  of  what  is  read. 
Perhaps  it  is  too  much  to  say,  as  has  often  been  said,  that 
there  is  no  book  which  has  nothing  good  in  it;  it  is  better 
simply  to  state  that  the  good  of  a  book  depends  incom- 
parably more  for  its  influence  upon  the  habits  of  the  reader 
than  upon  the  art  of  the  writer,  no  matter  how  great  that 
writer  may  be. 


f 


6  ON  READING 

In  a  previous  lecture  I  tried  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
superiority  of  the  child's  methods  of  observation  to  those 
of  the  man;  and  the  same  fact  may  be  noticed  in  regard  to 
the  child's  method  of  reading.     Certainly  the  child  can  read 
only  very  simple  things ;  but  he  reads  most  thoroughly ;  and 
he  thinks  and  thinks  and  thinks  untiringly  about  what  he 
reads;  one  little  fairy  tale  will  give  him  mental  occupation 
for  a  month  after  he  has  read  it.     All  the  energies  of  his 
little  fancy  are  exhausted  upon  the  tale;  and  if  his  parents 
be  wise,  they  do  not  allow  him  to  read  a  second  tale,  until 
the  pleasure  of  the  first,  and  its  imaginative  effect,  has 
begun  to  die  away.     Later  habits,  habits  which  I  shall  ven- 
ture to  call  bad,  soon  destroy  the  child's  power  of  really 
attentive  reading.     But  let  us  now  take  the  case  of  a  pro- 
fessional reader,  a  scientific  reader;  and  we  shall  observe  the 
same  power,  developed  of  course  to  an  enormous  degree. 
In  the  office  of  a  great  publishing  house  which  I  used  to 
visit,  there  are  received  every  year  sixteen  thousand  manu- 
scripts.    All  these  must  be  looked  at  and  judged;  and  such 
work  in  all  publishing  offices  is  performed  by  what  is  called 
professional  readers.     The  professional  reader  must  be  a 
scholar,  and  a  man  of  very  uncommon  capacity.     Out  of 
a  thousand  manuscripts  he  will  read  perhaps  not  more  than 
one ;  out  of  two  thousand  he  may  possibly  read  three.     The 
others  he  simply  looks  at  for  a  few  seconds — one  glance  is 
enough  for  him  to  decide  whether  the  manuscript  is  worth 
reading  or  not.     The  shape  of  a  single  sentence  will  tell 
him  that,  from  the  literary  point  of  view.     As  regards  sub- 
ject, even  the  title  is  enough  for  him  to  judge,  in  a  large 
number  of  cases.     Some  manuscripts  may  receive  a  minute 
or  even  five  minutes  of  his  attention;  very  few  receive  a 
longer  consideration.     Out  of  sixteen  thousand,  we  may 
suppose  that  sixteen  are  finally  selected  for  judgment.     He 
reads  these  from  beginning  to  end.     Having  read  them,  he 
decides  that  only  eight  can  be   further  considered.     The 
eight  are  read  a  second  time,  much  more  carefully.     At  the 


ON  READING  7 

close  of  the  second  examination  the  number  is  perhaps 
reduced  to  seven.  These  seven  are  destined  for  a  third 
reading;  but  the  professional  reader  knows  better  than  to 
read  them  immediately.  He  leaves  them  locked  up  in  a 
drawer,  and  passes  a  whole  week  without  looking  at  them. 
At  the  end  of  the  week  he  tries  to  see  whether  he  can  remem- 
ber distinctly  each  of  these  seven  manuscripts  and  their 
qualities.  Very  distinctly  he  remembers  three;  the  remain- 
ing four  he  can  not  at  once  recall.  With  a  little  more 
effort,  he  is  able  to  remember  two  more.  But  two  he  has 
utterly  forgotten.  This  is  a  fatal  defect;  the  work  that 
leaves  no  impression  upon  the  mind  after  two  readings 
can  not  have  real  value.  He  then  takes  the  manuscripts 
out  of  the  drawer,  condemns  two — the  two  he  could  not 
remember — and  re-reads  the  five.  At  the  third  reading 
everything  is  judged — subject,  execution,  thought,  literary 
quality.  Three  are  discovered  to  be  first  class;  two  are 
accepted  by  the  publishers  only  as  second  class.  And  so 
the  matter  ends. 

Something  like  this  goes  on  in  all  great  publishing  houses; 
but  unfortunately  not  all  literary  work  is  now  judged  in 
the  same  severe  way.  It  is  now  judged  rather  by  what 
the  public  likes;  and  the  public  does  not  like  the  best.  But 
you  may  be  sure  that  in  a  house  such  as  that  of  the  Cam- 
bridge or  the  Oxford  University  publishers,  the  test  of  a 
manuscript  is  very  severe  indeed;  it  is  there  read  much 
more  thoroughly  than  it  is  likely  ever  to  be  read  again. 
Now  this  professional  reader  whom  we  speak  of,  with  all 
his  knowledge  and  scholarship  and  experience,  reads  the 
book  very  much  in  the  same  way  as  the  child  reads  a  fairy- 
tale. He  has  forced  his  mind  to  exert  all  its  powers  in 
the  same  minute  way  that  the  child's  mind  does,  to  think 
about  everything  in  the  book,  in  all  its  bearings,  in  a 
hundred  different  directions.  It  is  not  true  that  a  child  is 
a  bad  reader;  the  habit  of  bad  reading  is  only  formed  much 
later  in  life,  and  is  always  unnatural.     The  natural  and 


8  ON  READING 

also  the  scholarly  way  of  reading  is  the  child's  way.  But 
it  requires  what  we  are  apt  to  lose  as  we  grow  up,  the 
golden  gift  of  patience;  and  without  patience  nothing,  not 
even  reading,  can  be  well  done. 

Important  then  as  careful  reading  is,  you  can  readily 
perceive  that  it  should  not  be  wasted.  The  powers  of  a 
well-trained  and  highly  educated  mind  ought  not  to  be 
expended  upon  any  common  book.  By  common  I  mean 
cheap  and  useless  literature.  Nothing  is  so  essential  to 
self-training  as  the  proper  choice  of  books  to  read;  and 
nothing  is  so  universally  neglected.  It  is  not  even  right 
that  a  person  of  ability  should  waste  his  time  in  "finding 
out"  what  to  read.  He  can  easily  obtain  a  very  correct 
idea  of  the  limits  of  the  best  in  all  departments  of  litera- 
ture, and  keep  to  that  best.  Of  course,  if  he  has  to  become 
a  specialist,  a  critic,  a  professional  reader,  he  will  have  to 
read  what  is  bad  as  well  as  what  is  good,  and  will  be  able 
to  save  himself  from  much  torment  only  by  an  exceedingly 
rapid  exercise  of  judgment,  formed  by  experience. 
Imagine,  for  example,  the  reading  that  must  have  been 
done,  and  thoroughly  done,  by  such  a  critic  as  Professor 
Saintsbury.  Leaving  out  of  the  question  all  his  university 
training,  and  his  mastery  of  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  which 
is  no  small  reading  to  begin  with,  he  must  have  read  some 
five  thousand  books  in  the  English  of  all  centuries, — learned 
thoroughly  everything  that  was  in  them,  the  history  of 
each  one,  and  the  history  of  its  author,  whenever  that  was 
accessible.  He  must  also  have  mastered  thoroughly  the 
.  social  and  political  history  relating  to  all  this  mass  of 
i  literature.  But  this  is  still  less  than  half  his  work.  For 
'.  being  an  authority  upon  two  literatures,  his  study  of  French, 
both  old  and  new  French,  must  have  been  even  more  ex- 
■  tensive  than  his  study  of  English.  And  all  his  work  had 
I  to  be  read  as  a  master  reads;  there  was  little  mere  amuse- 
ment in  the  whole  from  beginning  to  end.  The  only  pleas- 
J  ure  could  be  in  results;  but  these  results  are  very  great. 


ON  READING  9 

Nothing  is  more  difficult  in  this  world  than  to  read  a  book 
and  then  to  express  clearly  and  truly  in  a  few  lines  exactly 
what  the  literary  value  of  the  book  is.  There  are  not 
more  than  twenty  people  in  the  world  that  can  do  this, 
for  the  experience  as  well  as  the  capacity  required  must  be 
enormous.  Very  few  of  us  can  hope  to  become  even  third 
or  fourth  class  critics  after  even  a  lifetime  of  study.  But 
we  can  all  learn  to  read;  and  that  is  not  by  any  means  a 
small  feat.  The  great  critics  can  best  show  us  the  way 
to  do  this,  by  their  judgment. 

Yet  after  all,  the  greatest  of  critics  is  the  public — not 
the  public  of  a  day  or  a  generation,  but  the  public  of  cen- 
turies, the  consensus  of  national  opinion  or  of  human  opinion 
about  a  book  that  has  been  subjected  to  the  awful  test  of 
time.  Reputations  are  made  not  by  critics,  but  by  the 
accumulation  of  human  opinion  through  hundreds  of  years. 
And  human  opinion  is  not  sharply  defined  like  the  opinion 
of  a  trained  critic;  it  cannot  explain;  it  is  vague,  like  a 
great  emotion  of  which  we  cannot  exactly  describe  the 
nature;  it  is  based  upon  feeling  rather  than  upon  thinking; 
it  only  says,  "we  like  this."  Yet  there  is  no  judgment  so 
sure  as  this  kind  of  judgment,  for  it  is  the  outcome  of  an 
enormous  experience.  The  test  of  a  good  book  ought  always 
to  be  the  test  which  human  opinion,  working  for  generations, 
applies.     And  this  is  very  simple. 

The  test  of  a  great  book  is  whether  we  want  to  read  it 
only  once  or  more  than  once.  Any  really  great  book  we 
want  to  read  the  second  time  even  more  than  we  wanted 
to  read  it  the  first  time;  and  every  additional  time  that 
we  read  it  we  find  new  meanings  and  new  beauties  in  it. 
A  book  that  a  person  of  education  and  good  taste  does 
not  care  to  read  more  than  once  is  very  probably  not  worth 
much.  Sometime  ago  there  was  a  very  clever  discussion 
going  on  regarding  the  art  of  the  great  French  novelist, 
Zola;  some  people  claimed  that  he  possessed  absolute  genius; 
others  claimed  that  he  had  only  talent  of  a  very  remarkable 


10  ON  READING 

kind.  The  battle  of  argument  brought  out  some  strange 
extravagances  of  opinion.  But  suddenly  a  very  great  critic 
simply  put  this  question:  "How  many  of  you  have  read, 
or  would  care  to  read,  one  of  Zola's  books  a  second  time1?" 
There  was  no  answer;  the  fact  was  settled.  Probably  no 
one  would  read  a  book  by  Zola  more  than  once;  and  this 
is  proof  positive  that  there  is  no  great  genius  in  them,  and 
no  great  mastery  of  the  highest  form  of  feeling.  Shallow 
or  false  any  book  must  be,  that,  although  bought  by  a 
hundred  thousand  readers,  is  never  read  more  than  once. 
But  we  can  not  consider  the  judgment  of  a  single  individual 
infallible.  The  opinion  that  makes  a  book  great  must  be 
the  opinion  of  many.  For  even  the  greatest  critics  are 
apt  to  have  certain  dulnesses,  certain  inappreciations.  Car- 
lyle,  for  example,  could  not  endure  Browning;  Byron  could 
not  endure  some  of  the  greatest  of  English  poets.  A  man 
must  be  many  sided  to  utter  a  trustworthy  estimate  of  many 
books.  We  may  doubt  the  judgment  of  the  single  critic 
at  times.  But  there  is  no  doubt  possible  in  regard  to  the 
judgment  of  generations.  Even  if  we  cannot  at  once  per- 
ceive anything  good  in  a  book  which  has  been  admired  and 
praised  for  hundreds  of  years,  we  may  be  sure  that  by 
trying,  by  studying  it  carefully,  we  shall  at  last  be  able  to 
feel  the  reason  of  this  admiration  and  praise.  The  best 
of  all  libraries  for  a  poor  man  would  be  a  library  entirely 
composed  of  such  great  works  only,  books  which  have  passed 
the  test  of  time. 

This  then  would  be  the  most  important  guide  for  us  in 
the  choice  of  reading.  We  should  read  only  the  books  that 
we  want  to  read  more  than  once,  nor  should  we  buy  any 
others,  unless  we  have  some  special  reason  for  so  investing 
money.  The  second  fact  demanding  attention  is  the  gen- 
eral character  of  the  value  that  lies  hidden  within  all  such 
great  books.  They  never  become  old:  their  youth  is  im- 
mortal. A  great  book  is  not  apt  to  be  comprehended  by  a 
young  person  at  the  first  reading  except  in  a  superficial 


ON  READING  11 

way.  Only  the  surface,  the  narrative,  is  absorbed  and 
enjoyed.  No  young  man  can  possibly  see  at  first  reading 
the  qualities  of  a  great  book.  Remember  that  it  has  taken 
humanity  in  many  cases  hundreds  of  years  to  find  out  all 
that  there  is  in  such  a  book.  But  according  to  a  man's 
experience  of  life,  the  text  will  unfold  new  meanings  to 
him.  The  book  that  delighted  us  at  eighteen,  if  it  be  a 
good  book,  will  delight  us  much  more  at  twenty-five,  and 
it  will  prove  like  a  new  book  to  us  at  thirty  years  of  age. 
At  forty  we  shall  re-read  it,  wondering  why  we  never  saw 
how  beautiful  it  was  before.  At  fifty  or  sixty  years  of  age 
the  same  facts  will  repeat  themselves.  A  great  book  grows 
exactly  in  proportion  to  the  growth  of  the  reader's  mind. 
It  was  the  discovery  of  this  extraordinary  fact  by  genera- 
tions of  people  long  dead  that  made  the  greatness  of  such 
works  as  those  of  Shakespeare,  of  Dante,  or  of  Goethe. 
Perhaps  Goethe  can  give  us  at  this  moment  the  best  illus- 
tration. He  wrote  a  number  of  little  stories  in  prose,  which 
children  like,  because  to  children  they  have  all  the  charm 
of  fairy-tales.  But  he  never  intended  them  for  fairy-tales; 
he  wrote  them  for  experienced  minds.  A  young  man  finds 
very  serious  reading  in  them;  a  middle  aged  man  discovers 
an  extraordinary  depth  in  their  least  utterance;  and  an  old 
man  will  find  in  them  all  the  world's  philosophy,  all  the 
wisdom  of  life.  If  one  is  very  dull,  he  may  not  see  much 
in  them,  but  just  in  proportion  as  he  is  a  superior  man,  and 
in  proportion  as  his  knowledge  of  life  has  been  extensive, 
so  will  he  discover  the  greatness  of  the  mind  that  conceived 
them. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  authors  of  such  books  could 
have  preconceived  the  entire  range  and  depth  of  that  which 
they  put  into  their  work.  Great  art  works  unconsciously 
without  ever  suspecting  that  it  is  great;  and  the  larger  the 
genius  of  a  writer,  the  less  chance  there  is  of  his  ever  know- 
ing that  he  has  genius;  for  his  power  is  less  likely  to  be 
discovered  by  the  public  until  long  after  he  is  dead.     The 


12  ON  READING 

great  things  done  in  literature  have  not  usually  been  done 
by  men  who  thought  themselves  great.  Many  thousand 
years  ago  some  wanderer  in  Arabia,  looking  at  the  stars  of 
the  night,  and  thinking  about  the  relation  of  man  to  the 
unseen  powers  that  shaped  the  world,  uttered  all  his  heart 
in  certain  verses  that  have  been  preserved  to  us  in  the  Book 
of  Job.  To  him  the  sky  was  a  solid  vault;  of  that  which 
might  exist  beyond  it,  he  never  even  dreamed.  Since  his 
time  how  vast  has  been  the  expansion  of  our  astronomical 
knowledge !  We  now  know  thirty  millions  of  suns,  all  of 
which  are  probably  attended  by  planets,  giving  a  probable 
total  of  three  hundred  millions  of  other  worlds  within  sight 
of  our  astronomical  instruments.  Probably  multitudes  of 
these  are  inhabited  by  intelligent  life;  it  is  even  possible 
that  within  a  few  years  more  we  shall  obtain  proof  positive 
of  the  existence  of  an  older  civilization  than  our  own  upon 
the  planet  Mars.  How  vast  a  difference  between  our  con- 
ception of  the  universe  and  Jojys  conception  of  it.  Yet  the 
poem  of  that  simple  minded  Arab  or  Jew  has  not  lost  one 
particle  of  its  beauty  and  value  because  of  this  difference. 
Quite  the  contrary!  With  every  new  astronomical  dis- 
covery the  words  of  Job  take  grander  meanings  to  us,  simply 
because  he  was  truly  a  great  poet  and  spoke  only  the  truth 
that  was  in  his  heart  thousands  of  years  ago.  Very  an- 
ciently also  there  was  a  Greek  story-teller  who  wrote  a 
little  story  about  a  boy  and  girl  in  the  country  called 
"Raphnis  and  Chloe."  It  was  a  little  story,  telling  in  the 
simplest  language  possible  how  that  boy  and  girl  fell  in 
love  with  each  other,  and  did  not  know  why,  and  all  the 
innocent  things  they  said  to  each  other,  .and  how  grown-up 
people  kindly  laughed  at  them  and  taught  them  some  of 
the  simplest  laws  of  life.  What  a  trifling  subject,  some 
might  think.  But  that  story,  translated  into  every  lan- 
guage in  the  world,  still  reads  like  a  new  story  to  us;  and 
every  time  we  re-read  it,  it  appears  still  more  beautiful, 
because  it  teaches  a  few  true  and  tender  things  about  inno- 


ON  READING  13 

ccnce  and  the  feeling  of  youth.  It  never  can  grow  old, 
any  more  than  the  girl  and  boy  whom  it  describes.  Or,  to 
descend  to  later  times,  about  three  hundred  years  ago  a 
French  priest  conceived  the  idea  of  writing  down  the  history 
of  a  student  who  had  been  charmed  by  a  wanton  woman, 
and  led  by  her  into  many  scenes  of  disgrace  and  pain. 
This  little  book,  called  "Manon  Lescaut,"  describes  for  us 
the  society  of  a  vanished  time,  a  time  when  people  wore 
swords  and  powdered  their  hair,  a  time  when  everything  was 
as  different  as  possible  from  the  life  of  today.  But  the 
story  is  just  as  true  of  our  own  time  as  of  any  time  in 
civilization;  the  pain  and  the  sorrow  affect  us  just  as  if 
they  were  our  own;  and  the  woman,  who  is  not  really  bad, 
but  only  weak  and  selfish,  charms  the  reader  almost  as 
much  as  she  charmed  her  victim,  until  the  tragedy  ends. 
Here  again  is  one  of  the  world's  great  books,  that  cannot 
die.  Or,  to  take  one  more  example  out  of  a  possible 
hundred,  consider  the  stories  of  J^ans_^Andersen.  He  con- 
ceived the  notion  that  moral  truths  and  social  philosophy 
could  be  better  taught  through  little  fairy-tales  and  child 
stories  than  in  almost  any  other  way;  and  with  the  help 
of  hundreds  of  old  fashioned  tales,  he  made  a  new  series 
of  wonderful  stories  that  have  become  a  part  of  every  library 
and  are  read  in  all  countries  by  grown  up  people  much 
more  than  by  children.  There  is  in  this  astonishing  collec- 
tion of  stories,  a  story  about  a  mermaid  which  I  suppose 
you  have  all  read.  Of  course  there  can  be  no  such  thing 
as  a  mermaid;  from  one  point  of  view  the  story  is  quite 
absurd.  But  the  emotions  of  unselfishness  and  love  and 
loyalty  which  the  story  expresses  are  immortal,  and  so 
beautiful  that  we  forgot  about  all  the  unreality  of  the  frame- 
work; we  see  only  the  eternal  truth  behind  the  fable. 

You  will  understand  now  exactly  what  I  mean  by  a 
great  book.  What  about  the  choice  of  books'?  Some  years 
ago  you  will  remember  that  an  Englishman  of  science,  Sir 
John  Lubbock,  wrote  a  list  of  what  he  called  the  best  books 


14,  ON  READING 

in  the  world — or  at  least  the  best  hundred  books.  Then 
some  publishers  published  the  hundred  books  in  cheap  form. 
Following  the  example  of  Sir  John,  other  literary  men  made 
different  lists  of  what  they  thought  the  best  hundred  books 
in  existence ;  and  now  quite  enough  time  has  passed  to  show 
us  the  value  of  these  experiments.  They  have  proved 
utterly  worthless,  except  to  the  publishers.  Many  persons 
may  buy  the  hundred  books;  but  very  few  read  them. 
And  this  is  not  because  Sir  John  Lubbock's  idea  was  bad; 
it  is  because  no  one  man  can  lay  down  a  definite  course  of 
reading  for  the  great  mass  of  differently  constituted  minds. 
Sir  John  expressed  only  his  opinion  of  what  most  appealed 
to  him;  another  man  of  letters  would  have  made  a  different 
list;  probably  no  two  men  of  letters  would  have  made  ex- 
actly the  same  one.  The  choice  of  great  books  must  under 
all  circumstances  be  an  individual  one.  In  short,  you  must 
choose  for  yourselves  according  to  the  light  that  is  in  you. 
Very  few  persons  are  so  many  sided  as  to  feel  inclined  to 
give  their  best  attention  to  many  different  kinds  of  litera- 
ture. In  the  average  of  cases  it  is  better  for  a  man  to  con- 
fine himself  to  a  small  class  of  subjects — the  subjects  best 
according  with  his  natural  powers  and  inclinations,  the  sub- 
jects that  please  him.  And  no  man  can  decide  for  us  with- 
out knowing  our  personal  character  and  disposition  per- 
fectly well  and  being  in  sympathy  with  it,  where  our  powers 
lie.  But  one  thing  is  easy  to  do — that  is,  to  decide,  first, 
what  subject  in  literature  has  already  given  you  pleasure, 
to  decide,  secondly,  what  is  the  best  that  has  been  written 
upon  that  subject,  and  then  to  study  that  best  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  ephemeral  and  trifling  books  which  profess  to 
deal  with  the  same  theme,  but  which  have  not  yet  obtained 
the  approbation  of  great  critics  or  of  a  great  public  opinion. 
Those  books  which  have  obtained  both  are  not  so  many 
in  number  as  you  might  suppose.  Each  great  civilization 
has  produced  only  two  or  three  of  the  first  rank,  if  we 
except  the  single  civilization  of  the  Greeks.     The  sacred 


ON  READING  15 

books  embodying  the  teaching  of  all  great  religions  neces- 
sarily take  place  in  the  first  rank,  even  as  literary  produc- 
tions; for  they  have  been  polished  and  repolished,  and  have 
been  given  the  highest  possible  literary  perfection  of  which 
the  language  in  which  they  are  written  is  capable.  The 
great  epic  poems  which  express  the  ideals  of  races,  these 
also  deserve  a  first  place.  Thirdly,  the  masterpieces  of 
drama,  as  reflecting  life,  must  be  considered  to  belong  to 
the  highest  literature.  But  how  many  books  are  thus  rep- 
resented? Not  very  many.  The  best,  like  diamonds,  will 
never  be  found  in  great  quantities. 

Besides  such  general  indications  as  I  thus  ventured,  some- 
thing may  be  said  regarding  a  few  choice  books — those 
which  a  student  should  wish  to  possess  good  copies  of  and 
read  all  his  life.  There  are  not  many  of  these.  For  Euro- 
pean students  it  would  be  necessary  to  name  a  number  of 
Greek  authors.  But  without  a  study  of  the  classic  tongues 
such  authors  could  be  of  much  less  use  to  the  students  of 
this  country;  moreover,  a  considerable  knowledge  of  Greek 
life  and  Greek  civilization  is  necessary  to  quicken  apprecia- 
tion of  them.  Such  knowledge  is  best  gained  through  en- 
gravings, pictures,  coinga  statues- — through  those  artistic  ob- 
jects which  enable  the  imagination  to  see  what  has  existed; 
and  as  yet  the  artistic  side  of  classical  study  is  scarcely 
possible  in  Japan,  for  want  of  pictorial  and  other  material. 
I  shall  therefore  say  very  little  regarding  the  great  books 
that  belong  to  this  category.  But  as  the  whole  foundation 
of  European  literature  rests  upon  classical  study,  the  student 
should  certainly  attempt  to  master  the  outlines  of  Greek 
mythology,  and  the  character  of  the  traditions  which  in- 
spired the  best  of  Greek  literature  and  drama.  You  can 
scarcely  open  an  English  book  belonging  to  any  high  class 
of  literature,  in  which  you  will  not  find  allusions  to  Greek 
beliefs,  Greek  stories,  or  Greek  plays.  The  mythology  is 
almost  necessary  for  you;  but  the  vast  range  of  the  subject 
might  well  deter  most  of  you  from  attempting  a  thorough 


16  ON  READING 

study  of  it.  A  thorough  study  of  it,  however,  is  not  neces- 
sary. What  is  necessary  is  an  outline  only;  and  a  good 
book,  capable  of  giving  you  that  outline  in  a  vivid  and 
attractive  manner  would  be  of  inestimable  service.  In 
French  and  German  there  are  many  such  books ;  in  English, 
I  I  know  of  only  one,  a  volume  in  Bohn's  Library,  Keightley's 
*  ''Mythology  of  Ancient  Greece  and  Italy."  It  is  not  an 
expensive  work;  and  it  has  the  exceptional  quality  of  teach- 
ing in  a  philosophical  spirit.  As  for  the  famous  Greek 
books,  the  value  of  most  of  them  for  you  must  be  small, 
because  the  number  of  adequate  translations  is  small.  I 
should  begin  by  saying  that  all  verse  translations  are  use- 
less. No  verse  translation  from  the  Greek  can  reproduce 
the  Greek  verse — we  have  only  twenty  or  thirty  lines  of 
Homer  translated  by  Tennyson,  and  a  few  lines  of  other 
Greek  poets  translated  by  equally  able  men,  which  are  at 
all  satisfactory.  Under  all  circumstances  take  a  prose  trans- 
lation when  you  wish  to  study  a  Greek  or  Latin  author. 
We  should  of  course  consider  Homer  first.  I  do  not  think 
that  you  can  afford  not  to  read  something  of  Homer.  There 
are  two  excellent  prose  translations  in  English,  one  of  the 
•  Iliad  and  one  of  the  Odyssey.  The  latter  is  for  you  the 
more  important  of  the  two  great  poems.  The  references 
to  it  are  innumerable  in  all  branches  of  literature ;  and  these 
references  refer  usually  to  the  poetry  of  its  theme,  for  the 
Odyssey  is  much  more  a  romance  than  is  the  Iliad.  The 
advantage  of  the  prose  translation  by  Lang  and  Butcher  ^ 
is  that  it  preserves  something  of  the  rolling  sound  and 
music  of  the  Greek  verse,  though  it  is  only  prose.  That 
book  I  should  certainly  consider  worth  keeping  constantly 
by  you;  its  utility  will  appear  to  you  at  a  later  day.  The 
great  Greek  tragedies  have  all  been  translated;  but  I  should 
not  so  strongly  recommend  these  translations  to  you.  It 
would  be  just  as  well,  in  most  cases,  to  familiarize  your- 
selves with  the  stories  of  the  dramas  through  other  sources; 
and  there  are  hundreds  of  these.     You  should  at  least  know 


ON  READING  17 

the  subject  of  the  great  dramas  of  Sophocles,  iEschylus,  and 
above  all  Euripides.  Greek  drama  was  constructed  upon  a 
plan  that  requires  much  study  to  understand  correctly;  it 
is  not  necessary  that  you  should  understand  these  matters 
as  an  antiquarian  does,  but  it  is  necessary  to  know  something 
of  the  stories  of  the  great  plays.  As  for  comedy,  the  works 
of  Aristophanes  are  quite  exceptional  in  their  value  and 
interest.  They  require  very  little  explanation;  they  make 
us  laugh  today  just  as  heartily  as  they  made  the  Athenians 
laugh  thousands  of  years  ago;  and  they  belong  to  immortal 
literature.  There  is  the  Bohn  translation  in  two  volumes, 
which  I  would  strongly  recommend.  Aristophanes  is  one 
of  the  great  Greek  dramatists  whom  we  can  read  over  and 
over  again,  gaining  at  every  reading.  Of  the  lyrical  poets 
there  is  also  one  translation  likely  to  become  an  English 
classic,  although  a  modern  one;  that  is  Lang's  translation 
of  Theocritus,  a  tiny  little  book,  but  very  precious  of  its 
kind.  You  see  I  am  mentioning  very  few;  but  these  few 
would  mean  a  great  deal  for  you,  should  you  use  them 
properly.  Among  later  Greek  work,  work  done  in  the 
decline  of  the  old  civilization,  there  is  one  masterpiece 
that  the  world  will  never  become  tired  of — I  mentioned  it 
before,  the  story  of  "Daphnis  and  Chloe."  This  has  been 
translated  into  every  language,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  that 
the  best  translation  is  not  English,  but  French — the  version 
of  Amyot.  But  there  are  many  English  translations.  That 
book  you  certainly  ought  to  read.  About  the  Latin  authors, 
it  is  not  here  necessary  to  say  much.  There  are  very  good 
prose  translations  of  Virgil  and  Horace,  but  the  value  of 
these  to  you  can  not  be  very  great  without  a  knowledge  of 
Latin.  However,  the  story  of  the  iEneid  is  necessary  to 
know,  and  it  were  best  read  in  the  version  of  Conington. 
In  the  course  of  your  general  education  it  is  impossible  to 
avoid  learning  something  regarding  the  chief  Latin  writers 
and  thinkers;  but  there  is  one  immortal  book  that  you  may 
not  have  often  seen  the  name  of;  and  it  is  a  book  everybody 


18  ON  READING 

should  read — I  mean  the  "Golden  Ass"  of  Apuleius.  You 
have  this  in  a  good  English  translation.  It  is  only  a  story 
of  sorcery,  but  one  of  the  most  wonderful  stories  ever  writ- 
ten, and  it  belongs  to  world  literature  rather  than  to  the 
literature  of  a  time. 

But  the  Greek  myths,  although  eternally  imperishable  in 
their  beauty,  are  not  more  intimately  related  to  English 
literature  than  are  the  myths  of  the  ancient  English  religion, 
the  religion  of  the  Northern  races,  which  has  left  its  echoes 
all  through  our  forms  of  speech,  even  in  the  names  of  the 
days  of  the  week.     A  student  of  English  literature  ought 
to  know  something  about  Northern  mythology.     It  is  full 
of  beauty  also,  beauty  of  another  and  stranger  kind;  and  it 
embodied  one  of  the  noblest  warrior-faiths  that  ever  existed, 
the  religion  of  force  and  courage.     You  have  now  in  the 
library  a  complete  collection  of  Northern  poetry,  I  mean 
the  two  volumes  of  the  "Corpus  Poeticum  Boreali."     Un- 
fortunately you  have  not  as  yet  a  good  collection  of  the 
Sagas  and  Eddas.     But,  as  in  the  case  of  the  vaster  subject 
of  Greek  mythology,  there  is  an  excellent  small  book  in 
English,  giving  an  outline  of  all  that  is  important — I  mean 
necessary  for  you — in  regard  to  both  the  religion  and  the 
literature  of  the  Northern  races,  Mallet's  "Northern  An- 
tiquities."    Sir  Walter  Scott  contributed  the  most  valuable 
portion  of  the  translations  in  this  little  book;  and  these 
translations  have  stood  the  test  of  time  remarkably  well. 
The  introductory  chapters  by  Bishop  Percy  are  old  fash- 
ioned, but  this  fact  does  not  in  the  least  diminish  the  stir- 
ring value  of  the  volume.     I  think  it  is  one  of  the  books 
that  every  student  should  try  to  possess. 

With  regard  to  the  great  modern  masterpieces  translated 
into  English  from  other  tongues,  I  can  only  say  that  it  is 
better  to  read  them  in  the  originals,  if  you  can.  If  you 
can  read  Goethe's  "Faust"  in  German,  do  not  read  it  in 
English;  and  if  you  can  read  Heine  in  German,  the 
French    translation    in    prose,    which    he    superintended, 


ON  READING  19 

and  the  English  translations  (there  are  many  of  them) 
in  verse  can  be  of  no  use  to  you.  But  if  German  be 
too  difficult,  then  read  "Faust"  in  the  prose  version  of 
Hayward,  as  revised  by  Dr.  Buchheim.  You  have  that  in 
the  library;  and  it  is  the  best  of  the  kind  in  existence. 
"Faust"  is  a  book  that  a  man  should  buy  and  keep,  and 
read  many  times  during  his  life.  As  for  Heine,  he  is  a 
world  poet,  but  he  loses  a  great  deal  in  translation;  and 
I  can  only  recommend  the  French  prose  version  of  him; 
the  English  versions  of  Browning  and  Lazarus  and  others 
are  often  weak.  Some  years  ago  a  series  of  extraordinary 
translations  of  Heine  appeared  in  Blackwood's  Magazine; 
but  these  have  not  appeared,  I  believe,  in  book  form. 

As  for  Dante,  I  do  not  know  whether  he  can  make  a 
strong  appeal  to  you  in  any  language  except  his  own;  and 
you  must  understand  the  middle  ages  very  well  to  feel  how 
wonderful  he  was.  I  might  say  something  similar  about 
other  great  Italian  poets.  Of  the  French  dramatists,  you 
must  study  Moliere;  he  is  next  in  importance  only  to  Shake- 
speare. But  do  not  read  him  in  any  translation.  Here 
I  should  say  positively,  that  one  who  cannot  read  French 
might  as  well  leave  Moliere  alone;  the  English  language 
cannot  reproduce  his  delicacies  of  wit  and  allusion. 

As  for  modern  English  literature,  I  have  tried  in  the 
course  of  my  lectures  to  indicate  the  few  books  deserving 
of  a  place  in  world-literature;  and  I  need  scarcely  repeat 
them  here.  Going  back  a  little  further,  however,  I  should 
like  to  remind  you  again  of  the  extraordinary  merit  of  Mal- 
ory's book,  the  "Morte  D' Arthur,"  and  to  say  that  it  is 
one  of  the  very  few  that  you  should  buy  and  keep  and  read 
often.  The  whole  spirit  of  chivalry  is  in  that  book;  and 
I  need  scarcely  tell  you  how  deep  is  the  relation  of  the  spirit 
of  chivalry  to  all  modern  English  literature.  I  do  not 
recommend  you  to  read  Milton,  unless  you  intend  to  make 
certain  special  studies  of  language;  the  linguistic  value  of 
Milton  is  based  upon  Greek  and  Latin  literature.     As  for 


20  ON  READING 

his  lyrics — that  is  another  matter.  Those  ought  to  be 
studied.  As  there  is  little  more  to  say,  except  by  way  of 
suggestion,  I  think  that  you  ought,  every  one  of  you,  to 
have  a  good  copy  of  Shakespeare,  and  to  read  Shakespeare 
through  once  every  year,  not  caring  at  first  whether  you 
can  understand  all  the  sentences  or  not;  that  knowledge  can 
be  acquired  at  a  later  day.  I  am  sure  that  if  you  follow 
this  advice  you  will  find  Shakespeare  become  larger  every 
time  that  you  read  him,  and  that  at  last  he  will  begin  to 
exercise  a  very  strong*  and  very  healthy  influence  upon 
your  methods  of  thinking  and  feeling.  A  man  does  not 
require  to  be  a  great  scholar  in  order  to  read  Shakespeare. 
And  what  is  true  of  reading  Shakespeare,  you  will  find  to 
be  true  also  in  lesser  degree  of  all  the  world's  great  books. 
You  will  find  it  true  of  Goethe's  "Faust."  You  will  find 
it  true  of  the  best  chapters  in  the  poems  of  Homer.  You 
will  find  it  true  of  the  best  plays  of  Moliere.  You  will 
find  it  true  of  Dante,  and  of  those  books  in  the  English 
Bible  about  which  I  gave  a  short  lecture  last  year.  And 
therefore  I  do  not  think  that  I  can  better  conclude  these 
remarks  than  by  repeating  an  old  but  very  excellent  piece 
of  advice  which  has  been  given  to  young  readers :  "When- 
ever you  hear  of  a  new  book  being  published,  read  an  old 
one." 


CHAPTER  II 

ON  THE  RELATION  OF  LIFE  AND  CHARACTER 
TO  LITERATURE 


The  other  day,  when  lecturing  on  Miss  Bronte,  I  promised 
a  lecture  in  regard  to  certain  qualities  of  creative  work  in 
fiction.  This  is  the  lecture  that  I  now  wish  to  give;  but 
the  subject  is  one  which  requires  a  broad  consideration  of 
many  other  things  besides  methods.  What  it  really  implies 
you  will  find  indicated  in  the  title  of  this  lecture. 

Remember  that  when  I  am  talking  to  you  about  literature 
I  never  mean  history  or  science  or  philosophy;  I  mean  only 
the  great  division  of  that  literary  art  which  is  the  expres- 
sion of  feeling  and  of  emotional  life.  Bearing  this  in  mind 
we  can  proceed. 

The  three  main  divisions  of  literature  are  poetry^  drama 
and  fiction.  I  want  to  speak  of  these  in  relation  to  the 
lives  of  the  men  who  engage  in  their  production.  That 
is  what  is  meant  by  the  title  of  the  essay.  This  is  a  very 
important  subject  for  every  student  of  literature  to  con- 
sider. Any  one  wishing  to  become  an  author  in  any  one  of 
the  three  branches  of  literature  that  I  have  mentioned, 
must  ask  himself  honestly  several  questions  and  be  able  to 
answer  them  in  the  affirmative.  If  he  cannot  answer  them 
in  the  affirmative,  he  had  better  leave  literature  alone — 
for  the  time  being  at  least. 

The  first  question  is,  Have  I  creative  power?  That  is 
to  say,  Am  I  able  to  produce  either  poetry,  or  fiction,  or 
drama,  by  my  own  experience,  out  of  my  own  mental  opera- 
tion, without  following  the  ideas  of  other  people,  or  being 
influenced,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  only  by  the  opin- 
ions of  others.     If  you  cannot  answer  this  question  with 

21 


22       CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

an    honest    "Yes,"    then    you    can    only   be    an    imitator. 

But  suppose  that  you  can  answer  this  first  question  in  the 
affirmative,  there  remains  another  question  almost  equally 
important  to  ask.  It  is  this :  Can  I  devote  my  life — or  at 
least  the  best  part  of  my  leisure  time — to  literary  work? 
If  you  cannot  be  sure  of  much  time  to  spare,  you  should 
be  sure,  at  least,  of  being  able  to  give,  every  day  of  your 
existence,  a  short  time  to  one  sustained  object.  If  you  are 
not  sure  of  being  able  to  do  this,  you  will  find  the  way  of 
literature  very  hard  indeed. 

But  there  is  yet  a  third  question  to  be  asked.  Even  if 
you  have  the  power  and  the  time,  it  is  necessary  that  you 
should  determine  this  matter:  Must  I  mingle  with  society 
and  take  my  part  in  everyday  life,  or  should  I  seek  quiet 
and  isolation?  The  third  question  can  be  answered  only 
according  to  the  character  of  your  particular  literary  power. 
Certain  kinds  of  literature  require  solitude — cannot  be  pro- 
duced without  it.  Other  kinds  of  literature  oblige  the  au- 
thor, whether  he  likes  or  does  not  like  it,  to  mix  a  great 
deal  with  people,  to  observe  all  their  actions,  and  to  fill 
himself  with  every  possible  experience  of  active  life. 

I  think  now  the  ground  is  swept.  We  can  begin  the 
second  section  of  the  lecture. 

II 

What  I  have  suggested  in  the  above  series  of  questions, 
must  now  be  dwelt  upon  in  detail.  Let  us  first  consider 
poetry  in  its  relation  to  the  conduct  of  life. 

Poetry  is  not  one  of  those  forms  of  literature  which 
require  that  the  author  shall  mix  a  great  deal  with  active 
life.  On  the  contrary,  poetry  is  especially  the  art  of  soli- 
tude. Poetry  requires  a  great  deal  of  time,  a  great  deal  of 
thought,  a  great  deal  of  silent  work,  and  all  the  sincerity  of 
which  a  man's  nature  is  capable.  The  less  that  a  real  poet 
mingles  with  social  life,  the  better  for  his  art.     This  is 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE  23 

a  well  known  fact  in  all  countries.  It  is  so  well  known  that 
if  a  young  poet  allows  himself  to  be  flattered  and  petted 
and  made  much  of  by  the  rich  and  mighty,  it  is  commonly 
said  that  he  is  going  to  be  ruined.  One  cannot  be  perfectly 
sincere  to  oneself  and  become  an  object  of  fashionable 
attention.  It  is  utterly  impossible.  The  art  of  poetry  re- 
quires that  the  poet  be  as  solitary  in  his  house  as  a  priest. 
I  do  not  mean  that  it  should  be  necessary  to  be  an  ascetic, 
or  anything  of  that  kind,  nor  that  he  should  not  be  troubled 
with  family  cares.  It  is  very  necessary  that  he  should  have 
a  family,  and  know  all  that  the  family  means,  in  order  to 
be  a  good  poet.  But  he  must  certainly  renounce  what  are 
generally  called  social  pleasures.  In  the  same  degree  that 
he  fails  to  do  this,  he  is  almost  certain  to  fail  in  his  poetry. 
Let  us  here  consider  a  few  extraordinary  facts  about  the 
poetical  life.  Of  course  you  know  that  poetry  does  not 
mean  merely  writing  verses,  no  matter  how  correct  the 
verses  may  be.  It  means  the  power  to  move  men's  hearts 
and  minds  by  verse.  Now  a  Persian  poet  once  observed 
that  no  bad  man  could  possibly  become  a  poet.  There  is 
a  good  deal  of  truth  in  that  statement,  notwithstanding 
some  apparent  exceptions.  You  have  doubtless  read  that 
many  European  poets  were  bad  men.  But  you  must  take 
such  statements  with  a  great  deal  of  reserve  and  qualifica- 
tion. I  imagine,  for  example,  that  you  will  immediately 
think  of  Byron.  But  Byron  was  not  fairly  judged;  and 
you  must  not  allow  yourselves  to  accept  any  mere  religious 
or  social  declaration  about  the  character  of  the  poet.  The 
real  facts  are  that  Byron  was  unjustly  treated  and  goaded 
and  irritated  into  immoral  courses.  Moreover  the  deeper 
nature  of  Byron  was  essentially  generous  and  sympathetic, 
and  when  he  follows  the  inspiration  of  his  deeper  nature,  he 
gives  us  the  best  of  what  he  has.  I  might  speak  of  many 
other  poets ;  you  will  always  find  that  there  was  something 
good  and  generous  in  the  man,  however  great  his  faults  may 
have  appeared  on  the  surface.     Indeed,  I  knew  only  one 


24       CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

or  two  exceptions  to  this  Persian  observation  that  no  bad 
man  can  be  a  poet,  and  these  exceptions  are  not  satisfactory. 
We  find  in  the  time  of  the  Italian  renaissance  a  few  ex- 
traordinarily wicked  men  who  made  a  reputation  as  poets. 
I  might  mention  for  example  the  name  of  Malatesta.  But 
when  we  come  to  examine  the  literary  work  of  this  cruel 
and  ferocious  man,  we  find  that  its  only  merit  is  the  perfect 
correctness  of  the  verse.  Perfectly  correct  verse  was  greatly 
esteemed  in  that  age;  but  we  are  much  wiser  today.  We 
now  know  that  no  mere  correctness  qualifies  verse  as  true 
poetry;  and  I  do  not  think  that  the  Persian  poet  would 
have  found  any  poetry  in  the  love  verses  of  the  wicked 
Malatesta. 

Of  course  when  the  Persian  poet  spoke  of  a  bad  man, 
he  meant  what  is  bad  according  to  the  consensus  of  human 
experience.  I  should  not  call  a  man  bad  only  because  he 
happened  to  offend  against  particular  conventions.  I 
should  call  a  man  bad  only  in  so  far  as  his  relation  to 
others  proves  him  to  be  cruel,  unfeeling,  selfish,  and  un- 
grateful.    No  such  man  as  that  can  write  poetry. 

So  the  fundamental  truth  of  this  whole  matter  is  simply 
that  a  poet  must  be  born  a  poet — as  the  English  proverb 
says,  "A  poet  is  born,  not  made."  No  amount  of  education 
will  make  a  man  a  poet.  Every  year  in  England  two  great 
universities  turn  out  about  four  thousand  good  men  stuffed 
with  all  that  systematic  education  can  force  into  them.  Ger- 
man universities  can  do  better  than  that.  French  universi- 
ties do  quite  as  well.  But  out  of  these  thousands  and  thou- 
sands, how  many  can  become  poets'?  Not  half  a  dozen  in 
all  the  countries  of  Europe  together.  Education  will  help 
a  poet;  it  will  greatly  enrich  his  powers  of  language;  it  will 
train  his  ear  to  the  charm  of  musical  sound,  and  train  his 
brain  to  perceive  all  possible  laws  of  proportion  and  taste 
in  form.  But  it  cannot  make  him  a  poet.  I  suppose  there 
are  today  in  England  alone  at  least  thirty  thousand  people 
capable  of  writing  almost  any  form  of  correct  verse.     Yet 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE       25 

perhaps  not  even  two  of  them  are  poets ;  for  poetry  is  a  ques- 
tion of  character  and  temperament.  One  must  be  born  with 
a  love  of  the  beautiful,  with  great  capacities  for  sympathy, 
with  a  certain  gentleness  of  disposition,  in  order  to  be  able  to 
act  upon  the  feelings  of  men  through  literature.  The  quali- 
ties that  make  the  poet,  belong  to  the  softer  side  of  human 
nature — hence  the  proverb  that  the  poet  is  a  man  who  is 
half  a  woman.  I  think  that  you  have  all  observed  that 
certain  admirable  but  hard  kinds  of  mind  are  almost  in- 
sensible to  sentiment  in  literature.  As  a  general  rule — 
though  exceptions  have  existed — mathematicians  cannot 
be  poets ;  the  great  Goethe,  distinguished  as  he  was  in  science 
by  reason  of  his  constructive  imagination,  was  singularly 
deficient  in  mathematical  capacity.  It  would  appear  that 
certain  powers  of  the  mind  cannot  be  cultivated  except  at 
the  expense  of  other  faculties.  Everywhere  poets  have  been 
recognized  as  more  or  less  unpractical  in  active  life;  they 
rarely  make  good  business  men;  they  never  can  do  certain 
things  requiring  insensibility  to  the  feelings  of  others.  Es- 
sentially sympathetic,  their  conduct  is  ruled  in  all  things 
by  feelings  rather  than  by  cold  reason,  and  that  is  why 
they  very  often  make  such  unfortunate  mistakes.  But  they 
should  be  thought  of  as  representing  in  the  highest  degree 
what  is  emotional  in  man.  If  the  whole  world  were 
governed  by  hard  and  fast  rules,  it  would  become  very 
much  more  difficult  to  live  in  than  it  now  is  because  of  the 
poets  who  help  to  keep  alive  the  more  generous  impulses 
of  human  nature.  That  is  why  they  have  been  called 
priests. 

I  do  not  think  that  in  Japan  the  most  difficult  form  of 
sustained  emotional  effort  has  ever  been  comparable  to  the 
art  of  poetry  in  Western  countries.  It  is,  indeed,  such  a 
difficult  thing,  to  compare  the  achievements  of  two  coun- 
tries, that  if  I  were  speaking  only  of  poetry  as  embodied 
in  verse,  I  think  that  you  would  find  my  remarks  decidedly 
extravagant.     But  poetry  is  not  confined  to  forms  of  verse. 


26       CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

There  may  be  poetry  in  beautiful  prose;  and  some  of  the 
yery  best  English  literature  deserves  to  be  qualified  as 
prose-poetry,  because  it  produces  the  emotional  effect  of 
verse.  Now  any  form  of  literature  that  really  does  this 
requires  all  the  time  and  all  the  power  that  the  writer  can 
spare.  And  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  life  of  the  man 
who  writes  it  must  be  solitary — a  life  of  devotion  to  art. 

Ill 

Let  us  now  turn  to  fiction — excluding  the  variety  of  it 
which  might  be  termed  prose-poetry.  Fiction  should  be, 
in  these  times,  the  Mirror  of  Life.  What  is  a  man  to  do 
who  would  devote  his  time  and  life  in  this  direction?  We 
must  stop  and  qualify. 

Although  there  are  nominally  so  many  different  schools 
of  European  fiction — Classical,  Romantic,  Realistic,  Natu- 
ralistic, Psychological,  Problematical,  etc.,  etc., — we  need 
not  bother  ourselves  with  this  variety  of  distinctions,  but 
simply  divide  fiction  into  two  classes — subjective  and  ob- 
jective. Fiction  is  either  a  picture  of  things  imagined,  or 
a  picture  of  things  actually  seen.  Can  we  make  a  prefer- 
ence? From  the  artistic  point  of  view  I  am  not  sure  that 
we  can;  for,  contrary  to  what  vulgar  public  opinion  believes, 
the  greatest  works  of  fiction  and  drama  have  really  been 
subjective,  not  objective.  I  need  not  remind  you  that 
Shakespeare  did  not  see  and  did  not  experience  the  incidents 
of  his  astonishing  plays,  and  I  need  not  remind  you  that 
the  great  Greek  dramatists  did  not  see  the  facts  of  tragedy 
which  they  put  upon  the  stage  and  which  powerfully  move 
our  hearts.  This  is  an  astonishing  fact,  that  the  mind 
should  perceive  more  clearly  than  the  eyes — but  it  is  only 
when  the  mind  is  that  of  a  genius.  From  the  artistic  stand- 
point we  cannot,  nevertheless,  dare  to  say  that  one  method 
of  literature  is  necessarily  better  than  the  other,  merely 
because  the  greatest  work  happens  to  have  been  done  by  that 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE  27 

method.  In  some  future  time  we  might  find  an  objective 
method  made  equally  great.  And  from  the  individual  point 
of  view,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  young  author,  the 
young  student,  a  preference  is  absolutely  necessary.  It  is 
all-important  that  he  should  discover  in  what  direction  his 
literary  strength  is  growing.  If  he  feels  that  he  can  do 
better  by  imagination  than  by  observation,  then  let  him  by 
all  means  cultivate  romantic  work.  But  if  he  feels  sure 
that  he  can  do  better  by  using  his  senses — by  observing, 
comparing — then  he  must,  as  a  duty  to  himself,  adopt  a 
realistic  method.  And  the  conduct  of  his  life  in  relation 
to  literature  must  be  decided  according  to  which  path  he 
decides  to  take. 

As  I  told  you,  the  highest  forms  of  fiction  and  drama  have 
been  the  work  of  intuition,  of  imagination.  Thackeray, 
for  example,  no  more  than  Shakespeare  actually  saw  or 
experienced  what  he  put  into  his  novels.  Yet  those  novels 
much  surpassed  the  novels  of  Miss  Bronte,  who  only  wrote 
what  she  heard  and  saw  and  felt.  If  you  did  not  know 
the  real  facts  of  the  case,  you  would  think  that  Thackeray 
was  more  realistic  than  Miss  Bronte.  Great  imaginative 
work  is  more  realistic  than  reality  itself,  more  apparently 
objective  than  the  result  of  objective  study.  But  as  I 
reminded  you,  it  is  only  a  genius  who  can  reach  this  sort 
of  realism  through  intuition.  However,  there  are  minor 
degrees  of  genius.  You  must  have  noticed  some  of  these 
among  yourselves.  In  any  gathering  of  students  there  are 
always  a  few  remarkable  persons  in  whom  the  other  students 
are  willing  to  put  their  trust  whenever  any  emergency 
arises.  Suppose  a  thousand  students  are  in  a  difficult  posi- 
tion of  some  kind  or  anxious  about  something;  presently 
out  of  that  thousand,  leaders  or  guides  or  advisors  would 
come  forward.  It  is  not  necessary  at  all  that  they  should 
be  particularly  strong  or  formidable  persons ;  what  is  wanted 
in  a  time  of  embarrassment  or  danger  is  a  good  head,  not 
a  strong  arm.     You  instinctively  know,  I  presume,   that 


28       CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

he  who  has  the  best  head  among  you  is  not  necessarily  the 
best  scholar.  It  is  not  scholarship  that  is  needed  for  diffi- 
cult circumstances;  it  is  what  we  call  "mother-wit,"  strong 
common  sense,  that  is  what  we  commonly  mean  in  England 
by  "a  good  head."  Persons  of  this  kind  do  not  often  make 
mistakes.  Notice  how  they  act  when  they  come  in  contact 
with  strangers — they  remain  quite  at  ease,  unembarrassed, 
and  they  know  what  to  do  and  what  to  say  on  meeting 
extraordinary  persons  or  extraordinary  events.  Now  what 
is  this  power,  this  "mother-wit"?  It  is  a  kind  of  strong 
intuition.  It  is  the  best  of  all  wits  that  a  man  can  be  born 
to.  If  a  man  have  this  gift  in  a  very  great  degree,  and  if 
he  happen  at  the  same  time  to  have  a  love  of  literature, 
he  can  be  a  great  dramatist  or  a  great  novelist.  There  is 
the  real  subjective  worker.  He  has  no  difficulty  in  creating 
imaginary  persons,  and  making  them  perform  their  parts; 
he  has  been  born  with  the  knowledge  of  what  most  kinds 
of  men  and  women  would  do  under  certain  circumstances. 
But  a  high  degree  of  genius  is  not  often  found  in  this 
direction;  all  that  I  want  you  to  bear  clearly  in  mind,  is 
that  for  subjective  work,  imaginative  work,  you  must  know 
yourselves  to  possess  a  certain  amount  of  this  intuition. 
Unless  you  have  it,  it  were  better  to  work  in  other  directions. 
The  dramatic  faculty,  this  true  creative  power  of  which 
I  am  speaking,  is  always  rare  in  the  highest  degree.  When 
we  find  it  at  all  in  these  days,  we  find  it  only  in  minor 
degrees.  Very  possibly  it  exists  in  varying  states  in  minds 
that  never  cultivate  it — not  at  least  in  a  literary  direction. 
For  men  having  this  power  now-a-days  are  likely  to  use 
their  constructive  imagination  in  directions  which  assure 
material  success  much  more  certainly  than  literature  can 
ever  do.  They  may  become  diplomatists,  or  great  men  of 
business,  or  bankers,  or  political  leaders ;  their  knowledge  of 
human  nature  and  their  intuition  of  human  motives  can 
help  them  equally  well  in  many  other  directions  besides 
literature,  and  in  most  directions  vastly  better.     This  is  a 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE  29 

very  different  kind  of  character  from  the  character  of  the 
emotional  poet.     It  is  much  more  varied,  and  it  is  much 
stronger.     To  speak  of  any  rules  for  the  conduct  of  literary 
life   in  the  case  of  such  men  is  useless.     They  need  no 
counsel.     They  do  very  much  as  they  please,  and  obstacles 
never  dishearten  them.     It  is  worth  noting,  however,  that 
they  generally  take  an  active  part  in  social  life;  it  is  more 
interesting  for  them  than  a  play;  it  furnishes  them  with 
continual  motives  of  inspiration;  and  it  has  no  terror  for 
them  of  any  kind.     They  are  like  strong  swimmers  accus- 
tomed to  surf.     I  suppose  you  know   that  while   almost 
everybody  knows  how  to  swim  more  or  less,  surf-swimmers 
are  not  very  common.     In  America  or  other  countries  good 
surf-swimmers  get  high  wages  in  the  Government  life-saving 
service;  one  must  not  only  have  learned  from  childhood, 
but  must  have  great  natural  strength  and  skill.     Now  in 
the  great  sea  of  social  life,  where  clumsy  people  are  so  easily 
drowned,  the  character  of  which  I  speak  is  like  that  of  a 
strong  surf-swimmer.     He  has  nothing  to  fear  from  break- 
ers.    Observe  also  that  men  of  this  class,  as  the  history  of 
English  literature  especially  shows,  always  find  time  to  do 
what  they  want,  and  do  not  trouble  themselves  much  about 
the  "wear  and  tear"  of  social  duty.     Take,  for  example, 
the  history  of  Victorian  literature.     Only  one  of  the  four 
great  Victorian  poets  possessed  the  dramatic  faculty  in  a 
high  degree — Robert  Browning.     Tennyson,  Rossetti,  and 
Swinburne  led  lives  of  solitude  and  meditation;  Browning 
on  the  other  hand  was  constantly  in  society,  studying  human 
nature  as  well  as  obtaining  enjoyment  from  social  experi- 
ence.    Or   take    again   the   prose-writers.     The   great   ro- 
mantic novelists  were  all  solitary  men;  the  great  dramatic 
novelists  were  essentially  social  men.     Thackeray,  for  in- 
stance, was  especially  a  man  of  society.     Or  to  take  a  still 
later  example,  Meredith,  the  greatest  of  English  psycho- 
logical novelists,  is  of  course  a  social  figure.     It  was  in  the 
life  of  the  upper  classes  that  he  found  the  substance  of  his 


30       CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

extraordinary  novels.  Not  to  multiply  examples,  which 
would  require  too  much  time,  it  may  be  said  that  as  a  gen- 
eral rule,  solitude  is  of  no  use  to  men  of  creative  genius. 

IV 

I  think  I  have  shown  you,  or  suggested  to  you,  that  two 
great  departments  of  literature — the  emotional,  as  repre- 
sented especially  by  poetry;  and  the  creative,  as  especially 
represented  by  drama  or  the  dramatic  novels — depend  alto- 
gether upon  character,  upon  inheritance.  You  cannot  make 
a  great  poet  or  a  great  dramatist  by  education,  though 
education  may  help.  And  you  have  seen  that  the  two  kinds 
of  character  belonging  respectively  to  romantic  literature  and 
to  realistic  literature  are  almost  exactly  opposed  to  each 
other.  Both  are  rare.  It  is  not  likely  in  these  days  that 
many  among  us  can  hope  to  belong  to  either  class.  We 
generally  know  whether  we  belong  to  one  or  the  other  of 
them  at  an  early  period  of  life.  The  extraordinary  facul- 
ties usually,  though  not  always,  manifest  themselves  in 
youth.  It  is  true  that,  very  rarely,  a  great  talent  only 
develops  about  middle  age — this  occurring  chiefly  in  the 
case  of  prose  writers.  But  unless  we  have  the  very  best 
of  reasons  to  believe  ourselves  born  to  great  things  in  litera- 
ture, it  is  much  better  not  to  imagine  that  we  have  any 
special  mission.  Most  students  of  literature  are  more  likely 
to  belong  to  the  third  class  than  to  either  of  the  classes 
preceding,  and  it  is  of  the  third  class  especially  that  some- 
thing useful  may  be  said. 

The  ordinary  class  of  literary  men  must  depend  chiefly 
upon  observation  and  constant  practice.  They  cannot  hope 
for  sudden  inspiration  or  for  extraordinary  intuition.  They 
must  find  truth  and  beauty  by  painfully  searching  for  them ; 
and  they  can  learn  how  to  express  what  they  see  and  feel 
only  by  years  of  study  and  application.  Education  for 
these  is  almost,   though  not  absolutely,  indispensable.     I 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE  31 

say  "not  absolutely,"  because  self-training  can  sometimes 
supply  all,  and  more,  that  the  ordinary  education  is  capable 
of  giving.  But  as  a  rule  to  which  the  exceptions  are  few, 
the  ordinary  student  must  depend  upon  his  college  training. 
Without  it,  it  is  very  likely  that  he  will  always  remain  in 
his  work  what  we  call  in  literature  "jjravinciaL"  Provin- 
cialism as  a  literary  term  does  not  mean  a  country  tone,  a 
rustic  clumsiness_of  thinking  and  speaking.  It  means  a 
strong  tendency  to  the  commonplace,  an  inclination  to  dwell 
upon  things  universally  known  as  if  they  were  new  dis- 
coveries; and  it  also  means  the  habit  of  allowing  oneself 
to  be  so  unduly  influenced  by  some  one  book  or  another, 
or  by  one  class  of  ideas,  that  any  well-educated  reader 
recognizes  at  once  the  source  of  every  idea  expressed. 
This  is  provincialism.  The  great  danger  in  self-education 
is  that  it  leaves  a  man  all  his  life  in  the  provincial  stage, 
unless  he  happens  to  have  extraordinary  chances,  extraordi- 
nary tastes,  and  very  much  time  to  cultivate  both. 

The  most  important  thing  for  the  literary  student,  with 
a  university  training,  to  do  at  the  beginning  of  a  literary 
career,  is  to  find  out  as  soon  as  possible  in  what  direction 
his  intellectual  strength  chiefly  lies.  It  may  take  years  to 
find  this  out;  but  until  it  is  found  out  he  is  scarcely  likely 
to  do  anything  great.  Where  absolute  genius  does  not 
exist,  literature  must  depend  upon  the  cultivation  of  a  man's 
best  faculties  in  a  single  direction.  To  attempt  work  in  a 
number  of  directions  is  always  hazardous,  and  seldom  gives 
good  results.  Every  literary  man  has  to  arrive  at  this  con- 
clusion. It  is  true  that  you  find  in  foreign  literature  cases 
of  men  not  absolute  geniuses,  who  have  done  well  both  in 
poetry  and  in  prose,  or  in  prose-fiction  and  in  drama — 
that  is,  in  apparently  two  directions.  I  should  not  instance 
Victor  Hugo ;  his  is  a  case  of  pure  genius ;  but  I  should  take 
such  examples  as  Meredith  in  England,  or  Bjornson  in 
Norway,  as  better  illustrating  what  I  wish  to  say.  You 
must  remember  that  in  cases  like  these  the  two  different 


32  CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

kinds  of  literature  produced  are  really  very  close  to  each 
other,  so  close  that  one  absolutely  grows  out  of  the  other. 
For  example,  the  great  Norwegian  dramatist  began  as  a 
writer  of  stories  and  novels,  all  of  which  were  intensely 
dramatic  in  form.  From  the  dramatic  novel  to  the  play  is 
but  a  short  step.  Or  in  the  case  of  the  English  novelist 
and  poet,  we  really  find  illustrations  of  only  one  and  the 
same  faculty  both  in  his  poetry  and  in  his  prose.  The 
novels  in  one  case  are  essentially  psychological  novels;  the 
poetry  is  essentially  psychological  poetry.  Again  Brown- 
ing's plays  are  scarcely  more  than  the  development  in  dra- 
matic form  of  the  ideas  to  be  found  in  the  dramatic  poems. 
Or  take  the  case  of  Kingsley — essentially  a  romantic — a 
romantic  of  the  very  first  class.  He  was  great  in  poetry  and 
great  in  prose;  but  there  is  an  extraordinary  resemblance 
between  the  poetry  and  the  prose  in  his  case,  and  he  was 
wise  enough  to  write  very  little  poetry,  for  he  knew  where 
his  chief  strength  lay.  If  you  want  to  see  and  judge  for 
yourself,  observe  the  verse  of  Kingsley's  poem  on  "Edith  of 
the  Swan-Neck,"  and  then  read  a  page  or  two  of  the  romance 
of  "Hereward."  I  could  give  you  fifty  examples  of  the 
same  kind  in  English  literature.  Men  have  succeeded  in 
two  directions  only  when  one  of  these  naturally  led  into  the 
other.  But  no  student  should  make  the  serious  mistake — a 
mistake  which  hundreds  of  trained  English  men  of  letters 
are  making  today — of  trying  to  vvrite  in  two  entirely  differ- 
ent and  opposed  directions — for  example,  in  romantic 
poetry  and  realistic  prose.  It  is  very  necessary  to  know 
in  which  way  your  tastes  should  be  cultivated,  in  which 
way  you  are  most  strong.  Mediocrity  is  the  certain  result 
of  not  knowing.  For  after  all,  this  last  class  of  literature, 
like  every  other,  depends  for  success  upon  character — upon 
inborn  conditions,  upon  inheritance  of  tastes  and  feelings 
and  tendencies.  Once  that  you  know  these,  the  way  be- 
comes plain,  though  not  smooth;  everything  thereafter  de- 
pends upon  hard  work,  constant  effort. 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE  33 

Should  one  seek  or  avoid  solitude  in  the  pursuance  of  this 
ordinary  class  of  literary  aims'?  That  again  depends  upon 
character.  It  is  first  necessary  to  know  your  strength,  to 
decide  upon  the  direction  to  take;  these  things  having  been 
settled,  you  must  know  whether  you  have  to  depend  upon 
feeling  and  imagination  as  well  as  upon  observation,  or 
upon  observation  only.  Your  natural  disposition  will  then 
instruct  you.  If  you  find  that  you  can  work  best  in  soli- 
tude, it  is  a  duty  both  to  yourself  and  to  literature  to  deny 
yourself  social  engagements  that  may  interfere  with  the 
production  of  good  work. 

All  this  leads  to  the  subject  of  an  extraordinary  diffi- 
culty in  the  way  of  any  new  Japanese  literature,  a  difficulty 
about  which  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you  from  the  first.  I  think 
you  know  that  leisure  is  essential  to  the  production  of  any 
art  in  any  country — that  is,  any  national  art.  I  am  not 
speaking  of  those  extraordinary  exceptions  furnished  by 
men  able  to  produce  wonderful  things  under  any  circum- 
stances. Such  exceptional  men  do  not  make  national  art; 
they  produce  a  few  inimitable  works  of  genius.  An  art 
grows  into  existence  out  of  the  slow  labour  and  thought  and 
feelings  of  thousands.  In  that  sense,  leisure  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  art.  Need  I  remind  you  that  every  Japanese 
art  has  been  the  result  of  generations  of  leisurely  life1? 
Those  who  made  the  now  famous  arts  of  Japan — literature 
as  well  as  ceramics  or  painting  or  metal  work — were  not 
men  who  did  their  work  in  a  hurry.  Nobody  was  in  a 
hurry  in  ancient  times.  Those  elaborate  ceremonies,  now 
known  as  tea-ceremonies,  indicate  the  life  of  a  very  leisurely 
and  very  aesthetic  period.  I  mention  that  as  one  illustra- 
tion of  many  things.  Today,  although  some  people  try 
to  insist  that  the  arts  of  Japan  are  as  flourishing  as  ever, 
the  best  judges  frankly  declare  that  the  old  arts  are  being 
destroyed.  It  is  not  only  foreign  influence  in  the  shape  of 
bad  taste  that  is  destroying  them;  it  is  the  want  of  leisure. 
Every  year  the  time  formerly  allowed  for  pleasure  of  any 


34  CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

kind  is  becoming  more  and  more  curtailed.  None  of  you 
who  are  here  listening  to  me  can  fail  to  remember  a  period 
when  people  had  much  more  time  than  they  have  now. 
And  none  of  you  will  fail  to  see  a  period  in  which  the  want 
of  time  will  become  much  more  painful,  much  more  ter- 
rible than  at  present.  For  your  civilization  is  gradually, 
but  surely,  taking  an  industrial  character;  and  in  the  time 
when  it  shall  have  become  almost  purely  industrial  there 
will  be  very  little  leisure  indeed.  Very  possibly  you  are 
thinking  that  England,  Germany,  and  France  are  essen- 
tially industrial  countries — though  able  to  produce  so  much 
art.  But  the  conditions  are  not  the  same.  Industrialism 
in  other  countries  has  not  rendered  impossible  the  forma- 
tion of  wealthy  leisure  classes;  those  leisure  classes  still 
exist,  and  they  have  rendered  possible,  especially  in  Eng- 
land, the  production  of  great  literature.  A  very  long  time 
indeed  must  elapse  before  Japan  can  present  an  analogous 
condition. 

The  want  of  time  you  will  feel  every  year  more  and  more. 
And  there  are  other  and  more  serious  difficulties  to  think 
about.  Every  few  years  young  Japanese  scholars  who 
have  been  trained  abroad  in  the  universities  of  Europe — 
who  have  been  greatly  praised  there,  and  who  show  every 
promise — return  to  Japan.  After  their  return,  what  a  bur- 
den of  obligations  is  thrust  upon  their  shoulders!  They 
have,  to  begin  with,  to  assume  the  cares  of  a  family;  they 
have  to  become  public  officers,  and  to  perform  official  duty 
for  a  much  greater  number  of  hours  than  would  be  asked 
of  men  in  similar  positions  abroad;  and  under  no  circum- 
stances can  they  hope  for  that  right  to  dispose  of  their  own 
time  which  is  allowed  to  professors  or  officials  in  foreign 
countries.  No:  they  must  at  once  accept  onerous  posi- 
tions which  involve  hundreds  of  duties  and  which  are  very 
likely  to  keep  a  man  occupied  on  many  days  of  the  year 
from  sunrise  until  a  late  hour  of  the  night.  Even  what 
are  thought  and  what  used  really  to  be  pleasurable  oc- 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE  35 

casions,  have  ceased  to  be  pleasing;  time  is  lacking  for  the 
pleasure,  but  the  fatigue  and  the  pain  remain.  I  need  not 
particularize  how  many  festivals,  banquets,  public  and  pri- 
vate celebrations,  any  public  official  is  obliged  to  attend. 
At  present  this  cannot  be  helped.  It  is  the  struggle  between 
the  old  state  and  the  new;  and  the  readjustment  will  take 
many  years  to  effect.  But  is  it  any  wonder  that  these 
scholars  do  not  produce  great  things  in  literature?  It  is 
common  for  foreigners  to  say  that  the  best  Japanese  scholars 
do  not  seem  to  do  anything  after  they  return  to  Japan.  The 
fact  is  that  they  do  too  much,  but  not  of  the  kind  that  leaves 
a  permanent  work. 

Most  of  you,  whether  rich  or  otherwise,  will  be  asked 
after  your  university  life  is  over  to  do  a  great  deal  too  much. 
I  imagine  that  most  of  you  will  have  to  do  the  work  of  at 
least  three  men.  Trained  teachers,  trained  officers,  trained 
men  of  any  kind,  are  still  rare.  There  are  not  enough  of 
them;  there  is  too  much  work  to  do,  and  too  few  men  to 
do  it.  And  in  the  face  of  these  unquestionable  facts,  how 
can  you  hope  to  produce  any  literature?  Assuredly  it  is 
very  discouraging.     It  could  not  be  more  discouraging. 

There  is  an  old  English  proverb  that  seems  opportune  in 
this  connection : 

For  every  trouble  under  the  sun 
There  is  a  remedy,  or  there  is  none. 
If  there  is  one,  try  to  find  it ; 
If  there  be  none,  never  mind  it. 

I  think  you  will  agree  with  me  that  the  remedy  is  for 
the  moment  out  of  the  question;  and  our  duty  is  to  "never 
mind  it,"  as  the  proverb  says.  Discouraging  for  literature 
though  the  prospect  seems,  I  think  that  strong  minds  should 
not  be  frightened  by  it,  but  should  try  to  discover  whether 
modern  English  literature  does  not  offer  us  some  guiding 
examples  in  this  relation.  It  certainly  does.  A  great  deal 
of  excellent  English  literature  belonging  to  that  third  class 


36  CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

which  I  have  specified,  has  been  created  under  just  the  same 
kind  of  disheartening  circumstances.  Great  poetry  has  not 
been  written  under  these  conditions — that  requires  solitude. 
Great  drama  and  great  dramatic  novels  have  never  been  pro- 
duced under  such  conditions.  But  the  literature  of  the 
essay,  which  is  very  important;  the  great  literature  of  short 
stories;  and  a  great  deal  of  thoughtful  work  of  the  sys- 
tematic order,  such  as  historical  or  social  or  critical  studies, 
— all  this  has  been  done  very  successfully  by  men  who 
have  had  no  time  to  call  their  own  during  sunlight.  The 
literature  of  observation  and  experience,  and  the  literature 
of  patient  research,  do  not  require  days  of  thought  and 
leisure.  Much  of  such  work  has  been  produced,  for  many 
generations  in  England,  a  little  at  a  time,  every  night,  be- 
fore going  to  bed.  For  example,  there  is  an  eminent  Eng- 
lishman of  letters  named  Morley  of  whom  you  have  doubt- 
less heard — the  author  of  many  books,  and  a  great  influ- 
ence in  literature,  who  is  also  one  of  the  busiest  of  English 
lawyers  and  statesmen.  For  forty  or  fifty  years  this  man 
had  never  a  single  hour  of  leisure  by  day.  All  his  books 
were  produced,  a  page  or  two  at  a  time,  late  in  the  even- 
ing after  his  household  had  gone  to  sleep.  It  is  not  really 
so  much  a  question  of  time  for  this  class  of  literature  as  a 
question  of  perfect  regularity  of  habits.  Even  twenty 
minutes  a  day,  or  twenty  minutes  a  night,  represents  a 
great  deal  in  the  course  of  a  couple  of  years,  and  may  be 
so  used  as  to  produce  great  results.  The  only  thing  is  that 
this  small  space  of  time  should  be  utilized  regularly  as  the 
clock  strikes — never  interrupted  except  by  unavoidable  cir- 
cumstances, such  as  sickness.  To  fatigue  one's  body,  or  to 
injure  one's  eyesight,  by  a  useless  strain  is  simply  a  crime. 
But  that  should  not  be  necessary  under  any  circumstances 
in  good  health.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  waste  time  and  effort 
in  the  production  of  exactly  so  much  finished  manuscript. 
Not  at  all.  The  work  of  literature  should  especially  be  a 
work  of  thinking  and  feeling;  the  end  to  be  greatly  insisted 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE  37 

upon  is  the  record  of  every  experience  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing. Make  the  record  even  in  pencil,  in  short  hand,  in  the 
shape  of  little  drawings — it  matters  not  how,  so  long  as  the 
record  is  sufficient  to  keep  fresh  the  memory  when  you  turn 
to  it  again.  I  am  quite  sure  that  the  man  who  loves  litera- 
ture and  enjoys  a  normal  amount  of  good  health  can  make 
a  good  book  within  a  year  or  two,  no  matter  how  busy  he 
may  otherwise  be,  if  he  will  follow  systematic  rules  of 
work. 

You  may  ask  what  kind  of  work  is  good  to  begin  with; 
I  have  no  hesitation  in  replying,  translation.  Translation 
is  the  best  possible  preparation  for  original  work,  and  trans- 
lations are  vastly  needed  in  Japan.  No  knowledge  of 
Western  literature  can  ever  become  really  disseminated  in 
Japan  merely  through  the  university  and  the  school;  it 
can  be  disseminated  only  through  translations.  The  influ- 
ence of  French,  or  German,  of  Spanish,  Italian,  and  Rus- 
sian literatures  upon  English  literature  has  been  very  largely 
effected  through  translations.  Scholarship  alone  cannot 
help  the  formation  of  a  new  national  literature.  Indeed, 
the  scholar,  by  the  very  nature  of  his  occupation,  is  too  apt 
to  remain  unproductive.  After  some  work  of  this  kind, 
original  work  should  be  attempted.  Instinctively  some 
Japanese  scholars  have  been  doing  this  very  thing;  they 
have  been  translating  steadily.  But  there  they  have  mostly 
stopped.  Yet,  really,  translation  should  be  only  the  first 
step  of  the  literary  ladder. 

As  to  original  work,  I  have  long  wanted  to  say  to  you 
something  about  the  real  function  of  literature  in  rela- 
tion not  to  the  public,  but  to  the  author  himself.  That 
function  should  be  moral.  Literature  ought  to  be  especially 
a  moral  exercise.  When  I  use  the  word  moral,  please  do 
not  understand  me  to  mean  anything  religious,  or  anything 
in  the  sense  of  the  exact  opposite  of  immoral.  I  use  it  here 
only  in  the  meaning  of  self-culture — the  development 
within  us  of  the  best  and  strongest  qualities  of  heart  and 


38       CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

mind.  Literature  ought  to  be,  for  him  that  produces  it, 
the  chief  pleasure  and  the  constant  consolation  of  life. 
Now,  old  Japanese  customs  recognized  this  fact  in  a  cer- 
tain way.  I  am  referring  to  the  custom  of  composing  poetry 
in  time  of  pain,  in  time  of  sorrow,  in  all  times  of  mental 
trials,  as  a  moral  exercise.  In  this  particular  form  the 
custom  is  particularly  Japanese,  or  perhaps  in  origin 
Chinese,  not  Western.  But  I  assure  you  that  among  men 
of  letters  in  the  West  the  moral  idea  has  been  followed  for 
hundreds  of  years,  not  only  in  regard  to  poetry,  but  in  regard 
to  prose.  It  has  not  been  understood  by  Western  writers 
in  the  same  sharp  way;  it  has  not  been  taught  as  a  rule  of 
conduct;  it  has  not  been  known  except  to  the  elect,  the  very 
best  men.  But  the  very  best  men  have  found  this  out ;  and 
they  have  always  turned  to  literature  as  a  moral  consolation 
for  all  the  troubles  of  life.  Do  you  remember  the  story 
of  the  great  Goethe,  who  when  told  of  the  death  of  his  son, 
exclaimed  "Forward,  across  the  dead" — and  went  on  with 
his  work?  It  was  not  the  first  time  that  he  had  conquered 
his  grief  by  turning  his  mind  to  composition.  Almost  any 
author  of  experience  learns  to  do  something  of  this  kind. 
Tennyson  wrote  his  "In  Memoriam"  simply  as  a  refuge 
from  his  great  grief.  Among  the  poets  about  whom  I  lec- 
tured to  you  this  year,  there  is  scarcely  one  whose  work  does 
not  yield  a  record  of  the  same  thing.  The  lover  of  litera- 
ture has  a  medicine  for  grief  that  no  doctor  can  furnish; 
he  can  always  transmute  his  pain  into  something  precious 
and  lasting.  None  of  us  in  this  world  can  expect  to  be  very 
happy;  the  proportion  of  happiness  to  unhappiness  in  the 
average  human  life  has  been  estimated  as  something  less 
than  one  third.  No  matter  how  healthy  or  strong  or  for- 
tunate you  may  be,  every  one  of  you  must  expect  to  endure 
a  great  deal  of  pain;  and  it  is  worth  while  for  you  to  ask 
yourselves  whether  you  cannot  put  it  to  good  use.  For  pain 
has  a  very  great  value  to  the  mind  that  knows  how  to  utilize 
it.     Nay,  more  than  this  must  be  said;  nothing  great  ever 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE  39 

was  written,  or  ever  will  be  written,  by  a  man  who  does 
not  know  pain.  All  great  literature  has  its  source  in  the 
rich  soil  of  sorrow;  and  that  is  the  real  meaning  of  the 
famous  verses  of  Goethe : 

Who  ne'er  his  bread  in  sorrow  ate, — 
Who  ne'er  the  lonely  midnight  hours, 
Weeping  upon  his  bed  has  sat, — 
He  knows  ye  not,  ye  Heavenly  powers. 

Emerson  has  uttered  very  nearly  the  same  idea  with  those 
famous  verses  in  which  he  describes  the  moral  effect  upon  a 
strong  mind  of  the  great  sorrow  caused  by  the  death  of  the 
woman  beloved : 

Though  thou  love  her  as  thyself, 
As  a  self  of  purer  clay, 
Though  her  parting  dim  the  day, 
Stealing  grace  from  all  alive — 
Heartily  know, 
When  half -gods  go 
The  Gods  arrive ! 

That  is  to  say,  even  if  you  loved  that  woman  more  than 
yourself  and  thought  of  her  as  a  being  superior  to  humanity, 
even  if  with  her  death  the  whole  world  seemed  to  grow 
dark,  and  all  things  to  become  colourless,  and  all  life  to 
lose  its  charm ;  that  grief  may  be  good  for  you.  It  is  only 
when  the  demi-gods,  the  half-gods,  have  left  us,  that  we 
first  become  able  to  understand  and  to  see  the  really  divine. 
For  all  pain  helps  to  make  us  wise,  howevermuch  we  may 
hate  it  at  the  time.  Of  course  it  is  only  the  young  man 
who  sits  upon  his  bed  at  midnight  and  weeps;  he  is  weak 
only  for  want  of  experience.  The  mature  man  will  not 
weep,  but  he  will  turn  to  literature  in  order  to  compose  his 
mind;  and  he  will  put  his  pain  into  beautiful  songs  or 
thoughts  that  will  help  to  make  the  hearts  of  all  who  read 
them  more  tender  and  true. 

Remember,  I  do  not  mean  that  a  literary  man  should  write 


40  CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

only  to  try  to  forget  his  suffering.  That  will  do  very  well 
for  a  beginning,  for  a  boyish  effort.  But  a  strong  man 
ought  not  to  try  to  forget  in  that  way.  On  the  contrary, 
he  should  try  to  think  a  great  deal  about  his  grief,  to  think 
of  it  as  representing  only  one  little  drop  in  the  great  sea  of 
the  world's  pain,  to  think  about  it  bravely,  and  to  put  his 
thoughts  about  it  into  beautiful  and  impersonal  form.  No- 
body should  allow  himself  for  a  moment  to  imagine  that 
his  own  particular  grief,  that  his  own  private  loss,  that  his 
own  personal  pain,  can  have  any  value  in  literature,  except 
in  so  far  as  it  truly  represents  the  great  pain  of  human  life. 

Above  all  things  the  literary  man  must  not  be  selfish  in 
his  writing.  No  selfish  reflection  is  likely  to  have  the  least 
value;  that  is  why  no  really  selfish  person  can  ever  become 
either  a  great  poet  or  a  great  dramatist.  To  meet  and  to 
master  pain,  but  especially  to  master  it,  is  what  gives 
strength.  Men  wrestle  in  order  to  become  strong;  and  for 
mental  strength,  one  must  learn  to  wrestle  with  troubles  of 
all  kinds.  Think  of  all  the  similes  in  literature  that  ex- 
press this  truth — about  fire  separating  the  gold  from  the 
rock,  about  stones  becoming  polished  by  striking  together  in 
the  flow  of  a  stream,  about  a  hundred  natural  changes  rep- 
resenting the  violent  separation  or  the  destruction  of  what 
is  superficial. 

Better  than  any  advice  about  methods  or  models,  is  I 
think  the  simple  counsel :  Whenever  you  are  in  trouble  and 
do  not  know  exactly  what  to  do,  sit  down  and  write  some- 
thing. 

Yet  one  more  thing  remains  to  be  said,  and  it  is  not  un- 
important. It  is  this :  A  thing  once  written  is  not  literature. 
The  great  difference  between  literature  and  everything  in- 
cluded under  the  name  of  journalism  lies  in  this  fact.  No 
man  can  produce  real  literature  at  one  writing.  I  know 
that  there  are  a  great  many  stories  about  famous  men  sit- 
ting down  to  write  a  wonderful  book  at  one  effort,  and 
never  even  correcting  the  manuscript  afterwards.     But  I 


CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE       41 

must  tell  you  that  the  consensus  of  literary  experience  de- 
clares nearly  all  these  stories  to  be  palpable  lies.  To  pro- 
duce even  a  single  sentence  of  good  literature  requires  that 
the  text  be  written  at  least  three  times.  But  for  one  who 
is  beginning,  three  times  three  were  not  too  much.  And  I 
am  not  speaking  of  poetry  at  all — that  may  have  to  be 
written  over  as  many  as  fifty  times  before  the  proper  effect 
is  attained.  You  will  perhaps  think  this  is  a  contradiction 
of  what  I  told  you  before,  about  the  great  value  of  writ- 
ing down,  even  in  pencil,  little  notes  of  your  thoughts  and 
feelings.  But  the  contradiction  only  seems;  really  there  is 
no  contradiction  at  all.  The  value  of  the  first  notes  is 
very  great — greater  than  the  value  of  any  intermediate  form. 
But  the  writer  should  remember  that  such  notes  represent 
only  the  outline  of  the  foundation,  the  surveying  and  the 
clearing  of  the  ground  on  which  his  literary  structure  is 
slowly  and  painfully  to  be  raised.  The  first  notes  do  not 
express  the  real  thought  or  the  real  feeling,  no  matter  how 
carefully  you  try  to  write  them.  They  are  only  signs,  ideo- 
graphs, helping  you  to  remember.  And  you  will  find  that 
to  reproduce  the  real  thought  faithfully  in  v/ords  will  re- 
quire a  great  deal  of  time.  I  am  quite  sure  that  few  of  you 
will  try  to  do  work  in  this  way  in  the  beginning;  you  will 
try  every  other  way  first,  and  have  many  disappointments. 
Only  painful  experience  can  assure  you  of  the  necessity  of 
doing  this.  For  literature  more  than  for  any  other  art,  the 
all-necessary  thing  is  patience.  That  is  especially  why  I 
cannot  recommend  journalism  as  a  medium  of  expression 
to  literary  students — at  least,  not  as  a  regular  occupation. 
For  journalism  cannot  wait,  and  the  best  literature  must 
wait. 

I  am  not  sure  that  these  suggestions  can  have  any  imme- 
diate value;  I  only  hope  that  you  will  try  to  remember  them. 
But  in  order  to  test  the  worth  of  one  of  them,  I  very  much 
hope  that  somebody  will  try  the  experiment  of  writing  one 
little  story  or  narrative  poem,  putting  it  in  a  drawer,  writ- 


42  CHARACTER  AND  LITERATURE 

ing  it  over  again,  and  hiding  it  again,  month  after  month,  for 
the  time  of  one  year.  The  work  need  not  take  more  than 
a  few  minutes  every  day  after  the  first  writing.  After  the 
last  writing  at  the  end  of  the  year,  if  you  read  it  over  again, 
you  will  find  that  the  difference  between  the  first  form  and 
the  last  is  exactly  like  the  difference  of  seeing  a  tree  a 
mile  off,  first  with  the  naked  eye,  and  afterwards  with  a  very 
powerful  telescope. 


CHAPTER  III 
ON  COMPOSITION 


I  hope  to  give,  at  least  once  in  each  term,  a  short  lecture 
upon  the  practical  part  of  literature  and  literary  study. 
This  will  be,  or  ought  to  be,  of  much  more  value  to  you 
than  there  could  be  in  a  single  lecture  upon  the  characteris- 
tics of  an  author.  I  want  to  speak  to  you  only  as  a  prac- 
tical man-of-letters,  as  one  who  has  served  his  apprentice- 
ship at  the  difficult  trade  of  literature.  Please  understand 
that  in  saying  this,  I  am  saying  only  "I  am  a  workman," 
just  as  a  carpenter  would  say  to  you  "I  am  a  carpenter,"  or 
a  smith,  "I  am  a  smith."  This  does  not  mean  in  any  sense 
that  I  am  a  good  workman.  I  might  be  a  very  bad  work- 
man, and  still  have  the  right  to  call  myself  a  workman. 
When  a  carpenter  tells  you,  "I  am  a  carpenter,"  you  can 
believe  him;  but  that  does  not  mean  that  he  thinks  himself 
a  good  carpenter.  As  for  his  work,  you  can  judge  of  that 
when  you  find  occasion  to  pay  for  it.  But  whether  the  man 
be  a  clumsy  and  idle  workman,  or  be  the  best  carpenter  in 
town,  you  know  that  he  can  tell  you  something  which  you 
do  not  know.  He  has  learned  how  to  handle  tools,  and  how 
to  choose  the  kind  of  wood  best  adapted  to  certain  sorts  of 
manufacture.  He  may  be  a  cheat;  he  may  be  very  careless 
about  what  he  does;  but  it  is  quite  certain  that  you  could 
learn  something  from  him,  because  he  has  served  an  ap- 
prenticeship, and  knows,  by  constant  practice  of  hand  and 
eye,  how  a  carpenter's  work  should  be  done. 

So  much  for  my  position  in  the  matter.  Now  I  want  to 
begin  my  lecture  by  trying  to  disabuse  your  minds  of  two 
or  three  common  errors  in  regard  to  literary  composition.  I 
do  not  say  that  you  all  indulge  these  errors;  but  I  think  it 

43 


44  ON  COMPOSITION 

not  improbable.  The  first  error  against  which  I  wish  to 
warn  you  is  the  very  widespread  error  that  the  making  of 
literature — that  is  to  say,  the  writing  of  books  or  poems — 
is  a  matter  that  you  can  learn  through  education,  through 
the  reading  of  books,  through  the  mastery  of  theories.  I 
am  going  to  be  absolutely  frank  with  you,  but  quite  hetero- 
dox notwithstanding,  by  telling  you  that  education  will  not 
help  you  to  become  a  poet  or  a  story-teller  any  more  than 
it  could  help  you  to  become  a  carpenter  or  a  blacksmith. 
There  are  accessible  to  you,  in  libraries,  any  number  of 
books  and  treatises  about  different  kinds  of  woods,  about 
different  kinds  of  tools,  and  about  the  industry  of  wood- 
work. You  might  read  all  of  these,  and  learn  by  heart 
every  fact  of  importance  that  they  contain;  but  that  would 
not  enable  you  to  make  with  your  own  hands  a  good  table 
or  a  good  chair.  So  reading  about  writing  will  not  teach 
you  how  to  write.  Literature  is  exactly  like  a  trade  in  this 
sense  that  it  can  only  be  acquired  by  practice.  I  know  that 
such  a  statement  will  shock  certain  persons  of  much  more 
learning  than  I  could  ever  hope  to  acquire.  But  I  believe 
this  would  be  entirely  due  to  what  is  called  educational  bias. 
The  teachers  who  teach  that  literature  as  a  practical  art 
has  anything  to  do  with  the  mere  study  of  books,  seem  to 
forget  that  much  of  the  world's  greatest  literature  was  made 
before  there  were  any  books,  that  the  poems  of  Homer  were 
composed  before  there  were  any  schools  or  grammars,  that 
the  sacred  books  of  nearly  all  the  great  civilizations  were 
written  without  rules,  either  grammatical  or  other — and  yet 
these  works  remain  our  admiration  for  all  time. 

Another  error  to  be  considered,  is  that  the  structure  of 
your  own  language  is  of  such  a  kind  that  Western  rules  of 
literary  art  could  not  be  applied  to  it.  But  if  there  be  any 
truth  in  such  a  belief,  it  is  truth  of  a  most  unimportant 
kind.  As  I  have  told  you  that  a  knowledge  of  literary 
technicalities,  grammatical  or  prosodical,  will  not  teach  you 
how  to  write,  you  will  already  be  able  to  guess  how  little  I 


ON  COMPOSITION  45 

think  of  the  importance  to  you  of  what  are  commonly  called 
rules  of  composition.  These  foreign  rules,  indeed,  are  not 
applicable  to  your  language;  but  they  have  no  value  what- 
ever in  the  sense  I  mean.  Let  us  for  the  time  being  throw 
all  such  rules  overboard,  and  not  even  think  about  them. 
And  now  that  the  position  is  thus  made  clear,  or  at  least 
clearer,  let  me  say  that  the  higher  rules  of  literature  are 
universal,  and  apply  equally  well  to  every  language  under 
the  sun,  no  matter  what  its  construction.  For  these  uni- 
versal rules  have  to  do  only  with  the  truth;  and  truth  is 
truth  everywhere,  no  matter  in  what  tongue  it  may  be 
spoken.  Presently  we  shall  turn  back  to  the  subject  of  the 
universal  rule— indeed  it  will  form  the  principal  part  of 
this  lecture. 

The  third  error  against  which  I  wish  to  warn  you  is  the 
foolish  belief  that  great  work,  or  even  worthy  work,  can 
be  done  without  pains — without  very  great  pains.  Nothing 
has  been  more  productive  of  injury  to  young  literary 
students  than  those  stories,  or  legends,  about  great  writers 
having  written  great  books  in  a  very  short  time.  They  sug- 
gest what  must  be  in  a  million  cases  impossible,  as  a  com- 
mon possibility.  You  hear  of  Johnson  having  written 
"Rasselas"  in  a  few  weeks,  or  of  Beckford  having  done  a 
similar  thing,  of  various  other  notables  never  correcting  their 
manuscript — and  the  youth  who  has  much  self-confidence 
imagines  that  he  can  do  the  same  thing  and  produce  litera- 
ture. I  do  not  believe  those  stories;  I  do  not  say  exactly 
that  they  are  not  true;  I  only  say  that  I  do  not  believe  them, 
and  that  the  books,  as  we  have  them  now,  certainly  repre- 
sent much  more  than  the  work  of  a  few  weeks  or  even 
months.  It  is  much  more  valuable  to  remember  that  Gray 
passed  fourteen  years  in  correcting  and  improving  a  single 
poem,  and  that  no  great  poem  or  book,  as  we  now  have  the 
text,  represents  the  first  form  of  the  text.  Take,  for  ex- 
ample, the  poets  that  we  have  been  reading.  It  is  com- 
monly said  that  Rossetti's  "Blessed  Damosel"  was  written 


46  ON  COMPOSITION 

in  his  nineteenth  year.  This  is  true;  but  we  have  the  text 
of  the  poem  as  it  was  written  in  his  nineteenth  year,  and  it 
is  unlike  the  poem  as  we  now  have  it;  for  it  was  changed 
and  corrected  and  recorrected  scores  of  times  to  bring  it  to 
its  present  state  of  perfection.  Almost  everything  com- 
posed by  Tennyson  was  changed  and  changed  and  changed 
again,  to  such  an  extent  that  in  almost  every  edition  the 
text  differed.  Above  all  things  do  not  imagine  that  any 
good  work  can  be  done  without  immense  pains.  When  Dr. 
Max  Miiller  told  Froude,  the  historian,  that  he  never  cor- 
rected what  he  wrote,  Froude  immediately  answered  "Un- 
less you  correct  a  great  many  times,  you  will  never  be  able 
to  write  good  English."  Now  there  is  good  English  and 
good  English;  and  I  am  not  sure  that  Froude  was  right. 
Froude  was  thinking,  I  believe,  of  literary  English.  Cor- 
rect English  can  be  written  without  correction,  by  dint  of 
long  practice  in  precise  writing.  Business  letters  and  offi- 
cial documents  and  various  compositions  of  a  kindred  sort 
must  be  correct  English;  they  are  written  entirely  accord- 
ing to  forms  and  rules,  exactly  like  legal  papers  in  which  the 
mistake  of  one  word  might  cause  unspeakable  mischief. 
But  all  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  literature.  If  the  art 
of  writing  good  English  or  good  French  or  good  Japanese 
were  literature,  then  the  lawyers  and  the  bank  clerks  would 
represent  the  highest  literature  of  their  respective  countries. 
So  far,  however,  as  Froude  meant  literary  English,  he  is 
absolutely  right.  No  literature  can  be  produced  without 
much  correction.  I  have  told  you  of  primitive  literature 
composed  before  the  time  of  books  and  of  grammars,  which 
was  and  is,  and  will  long  continue  to  be,  unrivalled  litera- 
ture. But  do  you  suppose  that  it  never  was  corrected  and 
changed  and  re-made  over  and  over  and  over  again  ?  Why, 
most  assuredly  it  was,  and  corrected  not  by  one  only  but  by 
thousands  and  thousands  of  persons  who  had  learned  it  by 
heart.     Every  generation  improved  it  a  little;  and  at  last, 


ON  COMPOSITION  47 

when  it  came  to  be  written  down,  it  had  been  polished  and 
perfected  by  the  labour  of  hundreds  of  years. 

Now  I  suppose  all  of  you  have  at  some  time  wanted 
to  get  books  about  how  to  write  English,  I  suppose  that 
you  have  all  found  them,  and  that  the  result  was  only 
disappointment.  It  would  have  been  disappointment  just 
the  same  if  you  had  been  looking  for  French  books  on  how 
to  write  French,  or  German  books  on  how  to  write  German. 
No  books  yet  exist  that  will  teach  you  literary  work,  which 
will  teach  you  the  real  secrets  of  composition.  Some  day, 
I  trust,  there  will  be  such  books;  but  at  present  there  are 
none,  simply  because  the  only  men  capable  of  writing  them 
are  men  who  have  no  time  to  give  to  such  work.  But  this 
having  been  said,  let  us  return  to  the  subject  of  Japanese 
composition.  Before  trying  to  give  you  some  practical 
rules,  let  me  assure  you  of  one  thing,  that  all  your  foreign 
studies  can  be  of  no  literary  use  to  you  except  in  relation 
to  your  own  tongue.  You  can  not  write,  you  will  never 
be  able  to  write,  English  literature  or  French  literature  or 
German  literature,  though  you  might  be  able,  after  years 
of  practice  and  foreign  travel,  to  write  tolerably  correct 
English  or  French  or  German — to  write  a  business  docu- 
ment, for  example,  or  to  write  a  simple  essay  dealing  only 
with  bare  facts.  But  none  of  you  can  hope  to  be  eloquent 
in  any  other  tongue  than  your  own,  or  to  move  the  hearts  of 
people  by  writing  in  a  language  which  is  not  your  own. 
There  are  very  few  examples  in  all  English  literature  of  a 
man  able  to  write  equally  well  in  two  languages — in  French 
and  in  English  for  example,  close  as  are  these  tongues  to 
each  other.  With  an  oriental  language  for  a  mother  tongue, 
the  only  hope  of  being  able  to  create  literature  in  a  foreign 
language  is  in  totally  forgetting  your  own.  But  the  re 
suit  would  not  be  worth  the  sacrifice. 

I  suppose  that  many  of  you  will  become  authors,  either 
by  accident  or  by  inclination;  and  if  you  produce  literature, 


48  ON  COMPOSITION 

prose  or  verse,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  you  will  influence  the 
future  literature  of  your  country,  by  infusing  into  the  work 
those  new  ideas  which  a  university  course  must  have  forced 
upon  you  by  thousands.     But  this  alone,  this  imparting  of 
new  ideas,  of  larger  knowledge,  would  not  be  literature. 
Literature  is  not  scholarship,  though  it  may  contain  schol-4 
arship.     Literature  means,  as  I  have  said  before,  the  highest  | 
possible  appeal  of  language  to  the  higher  emotions  and  the  *' 
nobler  sentiments.     It  is  not  learning,  nor  can  it  be  made 
by  any  rules  of  learning. 

And  now  we  can  turn  to  the  practical  side  of  the  subject. 

I  begin  by  asking  you  to  remember  that  the  principles  of 
literary  composition  of  the  highest  class  must  be  exactly  the 
same  for  Japan  or  for  France  or  for  England  or  for  any 
other  country.  These  principles  are  of  two  kinds,  elimina- 
tion and  addition — in  other  words,  a  taking  away  or  getting 
rid  of  the  unnecessary,  and  the  continual  strengthening  of 
the  necessary.  Besides  this,  composition  means  very  little 
indeed.  The  first  thing  needed,  of  course,  is  a  perfect 
knowledge  of  your  own  tongue  as  spoken ;  I  will  not  say  as 
written,  for  a  perfect  knowledge  of  any  tongue  as  written 
is  possible  only  to  scholarship,  and  is  not  at  all  essential 
to  literature.  But  a  knowledge  of  the  living  speech,  in  all 
its  forms,  high  and  low,  common  and  uncommon,  is  very 
desirable.  If  one  can  not  hope  to  obtain  the  knowledge  of 
the  whole  spoken  speech,  then  I  should  advise  him  to  throw 
his  strength  into  the  study  of  a  part  only,  the  part  that  is 
most  natural  to  him.  Even  with  this  partial  knowledge 
excellent  literature  is  possible.  But  full  knowledge  will 
produce  larger  results  in  the  case  of  large  talent. 

II 

In  all  this  lecture  you  must  not  forget  my  definition  of 
literature  as  an  art  of  emotional  expression.  And  the  first 
thing  to  be  considered  is  the  emotion  itself,  its  value,  its 


ON  COMPOSITION  49 

fugitive  subtlety,   and  the  extreme  difficulty  of  "getting 
hold  of  it." 

You  might  ask  why  I  put  the  emotion  before  the  sensa- 
tion. Of  course  the  sensation  always  precedes  the  emo- 
tion. The  sensation  means  the  first  impression  received 
from  the  senses,  or  the  revival  in  memory  of  such  an  im- 
pression. The  emotion  is  the  feeling,  very  complex,  that 
follows  the  sensation  or  impression.  Do  not  forget  this 
distinction;  for  it  is  very  important  indeed. 

Now  the  reason  why  I  am  not  going  to  say  much  to  you 
about  the  sensation,  is  that  if  a  sensation  could  be  accurately 
described  in  words,  the  result  would  be  something  like  a 
photograph,  nothing  more.  You  might  say,  a  coloured 
photograph;  and  it  is  true  that  if  we  discover  (as  we  shall 
certainly  some  day  discover)  the  art  of  photographing  ia 
colours,  such  a  coloured  photograph  would  represent  almost 
exactly  a  visual  impression.  But  this  would  not  be  art. 
A  photograph  is  not  art ;  and  the  nearer  that  a  painting  re- 
sembles a  photograph  by  its  accuracy,  the  less  it  is  likely 
to  be  worth  much  from  the  artistic  point  of  view.  To  de- 
scribe sensations  would  be  no  more  literature  in  the  higher 
sense,  than  a  photograph  could  be  called  art  in  the  higher 
sense.  I  shall  therefore  boldly  take  the  position  that  lit- 
erature is  not  a  picture  of  sensations,  but  of  emotions. 

All  this  must  be  very  fully  illustrated.  When  I  say 
"emotion"  you  perhaps  think  of  tears,  sorrow,  regret.  But 
this  would  be  a  mistake.  Let  us  begin  by  considering  the 
very  simplest  kind  of  emotion — the  emotion  of  a  tree. 

Two  things  happen  when  you  look  at  a  tree.  First  you 
have  the  picture  of  the  tree  reflected  upon  the  brain  through 
the  medium  of  sight — that  is  to  say,  a  little  card  picture,  a 
little  photograph  of  the  tree.  But  even  if  you  wanted  to 
paint  this  image  with  words  you  could  not  do  it;  and  if 
you  could  do  it,  the  result  would  not  be  worth  talking  about. 
But  almost  as  quickly,  you  receive  a  second  impression,  very 
different  from  the  first.     You  observe  that  the  tree  gives 


50  ON  COMPOSITION 

you  a  peculiar  feeling  of  some  kind.  The  tree  has  a  cer- 
tain character,  and  this  perception  of  the  character  of  the 
tree,  is  the  feeling  or  the  emotion  of  the  tree.  That  is  what 
the  artist  looks  for;  and  that  is  what  the  poet  looks  for. 

But  we  must  explain  this  a  little  more.  Every  object, 
animate  or  inanimate,  causes  a  certain  feeling  within  the 
person  who  observes  it.  Everything  has  a  face.  When- 
ever you  meet  a  person  for  the  first  time,  and  look  at  the 
face  of  that  person,  you  receive  an  impression  that  is  im- 
mediately followed  by  some  kind  of  feeling.  Either  you 
like  the  face,  or  you  dislike  it,  or  it  leaves  in  you  a  state  of 
comparative  indifference.  We  all  know  this  in  regard  to 
faces;  but  only  the  artist  and  poet  know  it  in  regard  to 
things.  And  the  difference  between  the  great  artist  and  the 
great  poet  and  the  rest  of  the  world  is  only  that  the  artist 
or  the  poet  perceives  the  face  of  things,  what  is  called  the 
physiognomy  of  things — that  is  to  say,  their  character.  A 
tree,  a  mountain,  a  house,  even  a  stone  has  a  face  and  a 
character  for  the  artistic  eye.  And  we  can  train  ourselves 
to  see  that  character  by  pursuing  the  proper  methods. 

Now  suppose  that  I  were  to  ask  all  of  you  to  describe  for 
me  a  certain  tree  in  the  garden  of  the  University.  I  should 
expect  that  a  majority  among  you  would  write  very  nearly 
the  same  thing.  But  would  this  be  a  proof  that  the  tree 
had  given  to  all  of  you  the  same  kind  of  feeling?  No,  it 
would  not  mean  anything  of  the  sort.  It  would  mean  only 
that  a  majority  among  you  had  acquired  habits  of  thinking 
and  writing  which  are  contrary  to  the  principles  of  art. 
Most  of  you  would  describe  the  tree  in  nearly  the  same  way, 
because,  in  the  course  of  years  of  study,  your  minds  have 
been  filled  with  those  forms  of  language  commonly  used  to 
describe  trees;  you  would  remember  the  words  of  some 
famous  poet  or  story-teller,  and  would  use  them  as  express- 
ing your  own  feelings.  But  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  they 
would  not  express  your  own  feelings.  Education  usually 
teaches  us  to  use  the  ideas  and  the  language  of  other  men 


ON  COMPOSITION  51 

to  describe  our  own  feelings,  and  this  habit  is  exactly  con- 
trary to  every  principle  of  art. 

Now  suppose  there  is  one  among  you  of  a  remarkably 
powerful  talent  of  the  poetical  and  artistic  kind.  His  de- 
scription of  the  tree  would  be  startlingly  different  from 
that  of  the  rest  of  you;  it  would  surprise  you  all,  so  that 
you  would  have  to  look  at  the  tree  again  in  order  to  see 
whether  the  description  was  true.  Then  you  would  be 
still  more  astonished  to  find  that  it  was  much  more  true 
than  any  other;  and  then  you  would  not  only  discover  that 
he  had  enabled  you  to  understand  the  tree  in  a  new  way, 
but  also  that  the  rest  of  you  had  but  half  seen  it,  and  that 
your  descriptions  were  all  wrong.  He  would  not  have  used 
the  words  of  other  men  to  describe  the  tree ;  he  would  have 
used  his  own,  and  they  would  be  very  simple  words  indeed, 
like  the  words  of  a  child. 

For  the  child  is  incomparably  superior  to  the  average  man 
in  seeing  the  character  of  things;  and  the  artist  sees  like 
the  child.  If  I  were  to  ask  twenty  little  children — say,  five 
or  six  years  old — to  look  at  the  same  tree  that  we  were  talk- 
ing about,  and  to  tell  me  what  they  think  of  it,  I  am  sure 
that  many  of  them  would  say  wonderful  things.  They 
would  come  much  nearer  to  the  truth  than  the  average  uni- 
versity student,  and  this  just  because  of  their  absolute  in- 
nocence. To  the  child's  imagination  everything  is  alive — 
stones,  trees,  plants,  even  household  objects.  For  him 
everything  has  a  soul.  He  sees  things  quite  differently  from 
the  man.  Nor  is  this  the  only  reason  for  the  superiority  of 
the  child's  powers  of  observation.  His  instinctive  knowl- 
edge, the  knowledge  inherited  from  millions  of  past  lives,  is 
still  fresh,  not  dulled  by  the  weight  of  the  myriad  impres- 
sions of  education  and  personal  experience.  Ask  a  child, 
for  example,  what  he  thinks  of  a  certain  stranger.  He  will 
look  and  say  "I  like  him,"  or  "I  dislike  him."  Should  you 
ask,  "Why  do  you  dislike  that  man1?"  the  child,  after  some 
difficulty,  will  tell  you  that  he  does  not  like  something  in 


52  ON  COMPOSITION 

his  face.  Press  the  little  fellow  further  to  explain,  and 
after  a  long  and  painful  effort  he  will  suddenly  come  out 
with  a  comparison  of  startling  truth  that  will  surprise  you, 
showing  that  he  has  perceived  something  in  the  face  that 
you  did  not  see.  This  same  instinctive  power  is  the  real 
power  of  the  artist,  and  it  is  the  power  that  distinguishes 
literature  from  mere  writing.  You  will  now  better  under- 
stand what  I  meant  by  saying  that  education  will  not  teach 
a  person  how  to  make  poetry,  any  more  than  a  reading  of 
books  could  teach  a  man  how  to  make  a  table  or  a  chair. 
The  faculty  of  artistic  seeing  is  independent  of  education, 
and  must  be  cultivated  outside  of  education.  Education 
has  not  made  great  writers.  On  the  contrary,  they  have  be- 
come great  in  spite  of  education.  For  the  effect  of  educa- 
tion is  necessarily  to  deaden  and  dull  those  primitive  and 
instinctive  feelings  upon  which  the  higher  phases  of  emo- 
tional art  depend.  Knowledge  can  only  be  gained  in  most 
cases  at  the  expense  of  certain  very  precious  natural  facul- 
ties. The  man  who  is  able  to  keep  the  freshness  of  the 
child  in  his  mind  and  heart,  notwithstanding  all  the  knowl- 
edge that  he  absorbs,  that  is  the  man  who  is  likely  to  per- 
form great  things  in  literature. 

Now  we  have  clearly  defined  what  I  mean  by  the  feeling 
or  emotion  which  the  artist  in  literature  must  seek  to  catch 
and  express.  We  took  the  simplest  example  possible,  a 
tree.  But  everything,  and  every  fancy,  and  every  being  to 
be  treated  of  in  literature  must  be  considered  in  precisely 
the  same  way.  In  all  cases  the  object  of  the  writer  should 
be  to  seize  and  fix  the  character  of  the  thing,  and  he  can 
do  this  only  by  expressing  the  exact  feeling  that  the  thing 
has  produced  in  his  mind.  This  is  the  main  work  of  litera- 
ture. It  is  very  difficult.  But  why  it  is  difficult  we  have 
not  yet  considered. 

What  happens  when  the  feeling  comes*?     You  feel  then 

a  momentary  thrill  of  pleasure  or  pain  or  fear  or  wonder; 

/    but  this  thrill  passes  away  almost  as  suddenly  as  it  comes. 


ON  COMPOSITION  53 

You  can  not  write  it  down  as  fast  as  it  vanishes.  You  are 
left  then  only  with  the  sensation  or  first  impression  of  the 
thing  in  your  mind,  and  a  mere  memory  of  the  feeling.  In 
different  natures  the  feeling  is  different,  and  it  lasts  longer 
in  some  than  in  others;  but  in  all  cases  it  passes  away  as 
rapidly  as  smoke,  or  perfume  blown  by  a  wind.  If  you 
think  that  anybody  can  put  down  on  paper  this  feeling 
exactly  as  it  is  received,  immediately  upon  receiving  it,  you 
are  much  mistaken.  This  can  be  accomplished  only  by  ar- 
duous labour.  The  labour  is  to  revive  the  feeling. 
.-•'At  first  you  will  be  exactly  in  the  condition  of  a  person 
trying  to  remember  a  dream  after  waking  up.  All  of  us 
know  how  difficult  it  is  to  remember  a  dream.  But  by  the 
help  of  the  sensation,  which  was  received  during  sleep,  the 
feeling  may  be  revived.  My  recommendation  would  be  in 
such  a  case  to  write  down  immediately,  as  fully  as  you  can, 
the  circumstances  and  the  cause  of  the  emotion,  and  to  try 
to  describe  the  feeling  as  far  as  possible.  It  makes  no  dif- 
ference then  whether  you  write  at  all  grammatically,  nor 
whether  you  finish  your  sentences,  nor  whether  you  write 
backwards  or  forwards.  The  all-essential  thing  is  to  have 
notes  of  the  experience.  These  notes  should  be  the  seed 
from  which  the  plant  will  be  made  to  grow  and  to  blossom. 
Reading  over  these  quick  notes,  you  will  perceive  that 
the  feeling  is  faintly  revived  by  them,  especially  by  certain 
parts  of  them.  But  of  course,,  except  to  you,  the  notes 
would  still  be  of  no  possible  value.  The  next  work  is  to 
develop  the  notes,  to  arrange  them  in  their  natural  order, 
and  to  construct  the  sentences  in  a  correct  way.  While  do- 
ing this  you  will  find  that  a  number  of  things  come  back 
to  your  mind  which  you  had  forgotten  while  making  the 
notes.  The  development  of  the  notes  is  likely  to  be  four 
or  five  times  longer,  perhaps  even  ten  times  longer,  than  were 
the  notes  themselves.  But  now,  reading  over  the  new  writ- 
ing, you  find  that  the  feeling  is  not  revived  by  it;  the  feel- 
ing has  entirely  vanished,  and  what  you  have  written  is 


54s  ON  COMPOSITION 

likely  to  seem  commonplace  enough.  A  third  writing  you 
will  find  to  better  both  the  language  and  the  thought,  but 
perhaps  the  feeling  does  not  revive.  A  fourth  and  a  fifth 
writing  will  involve  an  astonishing  number  of  changes. 
For  while  engaged  in  this  tiresome  work,  you  are  sure  to 
find  that  a  number  of  things  which  you  have  already  writ- 
ten are  not  necessary,  and  you  will  also  find  that  the  most 
important  things  remaining  have  not  been  properly  de- 
veloped at  all.  While  you  are  doing  the  work  over  again, 
new  thoughts  come;  the  whole  thing  changes  shape,  begins 
to  be  more  compact,  more  strong  and  simple;  and  at  last, 
to  your  delight,  the  feeling  revives — nay,  revives  more 
strongly  than  at  first,  being  enriched  by  new  psychological 
relations.  You  will  be  surprised  at  the  beauty  of  what 
you  have  done;  but  you  must  not  trust  the  feeling  then. 
Instead  of  immediately  printing  the  thing,  I  should  advise 
you  to  put  it  into  a  drawer,  and  leave  it  there  for  at  least 
a  month,  without  looking  at  it  again.  When  you  re-read 
it  after  this  interval,  you  are  certain  to  find  that  you  can 
perfect  it  a  great  deal  more.  After  one  or  two  further  re- 
modellings  it  will  be  perhaps  the  very  best  that  you  can  do, 
and  will  give  to  others  the  same  emotion  that  you  yourself 
felt  on  first  perceiving  the  fact  or  the  object.  The  process 
is  very  much  like  that  of  focusing  with  a  telescope.  You 
know  that  you  must  pull  the  tubing  out  a  little  further,  or 
push  it  in  a  little  further,  and  then  pull  it  again  and  then 
push  it  again  many  times  before  you  can  get  the  sharpest 
possible  view  of  a  distant  object.  Well,  the  literary  artist 
has  to  do  with  language  what  the  sight-seer  must  do  with  a 
telescope.  And  this  is  the  first  thing  essential  in  any  kind 
of  literary  composition.  It  is  drudgery,  I  know;  but  there 
is  no  escape  from  it.  Neither  Tennyson,  nor  Rossetti,  nor 
anybody  else  of  great  importance  in  English  literature  has 
been  able  to  escape  from  it  within  our  own  day.  Long 
practice  will  not  lighten  this  labour  in  the  least.  Your 
methods  may  become  incomparably  more  skilful;  but  the 


ON  COMPOSITION  55 

actual  volume  of  work  will  always  be  about  the  same. 

I  imagine  that  some  of  you  might  ask:  "Is  there  no  other 
way  of  expressing  emotion  or  sentiment  than  that  which  you 
have  been  trying  to  describe  to  us*?  You  say  that  the  high- 
est literature  is  emotional  expression;  but  there  is  nothing 
more  difficult  than  the  work  you  have  suggested;  is  there 
no  other  way?" 

Yes,  there  is  another  way,  and  a  way  which  I  sometimes 
imagine  is  more  in  harmony  with  the  character  of  the  Jap- 
anese genius,  and  perhaps  with  the  character  of  the  Japanese 
language.  But  it  is  just  as  difficult;  and  it  has  this  further 
disadvantage  that  it  requires  immense  experience,  as  well  as 
a  very  special  talent.  It  is  what  has  been  called  the  im- 
personal method,  though  I  am  not  sure  that  this  title  is  a 
good  one.  Very  few  great  writers  have  been  able  to  succeed 
at  it;  and  I  think  that  these  few  have  mostly  been  French- 
men.    And  it  is  a  method  suitable  only  for  prose. 

An  emotion  may  be  either  expressed  or  suggested.  If  it 
is  difficult  to  express,  it  is  at  least  quite  as  difficult  to  sug- 
gest; but  if  you  can  suggest  it,  the  suggestion  is  apt  to  be 
even  more  powerful  than  the  expression,  because  it  leaves 
much  more  to  the  imagination.  Of  course  you  must  re- 
member that  all  literary  art  must  be  partly  suggestive — do 
not  forget  that.  But  by  the  impersonal  method,  as  it  has 
been  called,  it  becomes  altogether  suggestive.  There  is  no 
expression  of  emotion  by  the  writer  at  all — that  is  to  say,  by 
the  narrator.  Nevertheless  the  emotion  comes  as  you  read, 
and  comes  with  extraordinary  power.  There  is  only  one 
very  great  writer  of  our  own  times  who  succeeded  perfectly 
by  this  method — that  was  Guy  de  Maupassant. 

A  number  of  facts  may  be  related,  quite  dispassionately 
and  plainly,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  arouse  very  great  feel- 
ing; or  a  conversation  may  be  so  reported  as  to  convey  to 
the  mind  the  exact  feelings  of  the  speakers,  and  even  to 
suggest  every  look  or  action  without  any  description  at  all. 
But  you  will  see  at  once  that  the  great  difficulty  here  lies 


rv 


56  ON  COMPOSITION 

not  so  much  in  the  choice  of  word  values  (although  that 
also  is  indispensable)  as  in  the  choice  of  facts.  You  must 
become  a  perfect  judge  of  the  literary  worth — I  mean  the 
emotional  value — of  the  simplest  fact  in  itself.  Now  a 
man  who  can  make  such  judgments  must  have  had  a  vast  ex- 
perience of  life.  He  must  have  the  dramatic  faculty  greatly 
developed.  He  must  know  the  conversational  peculiarities 
of  the  language  of  all  classes.  He  must  be  able  to  group 
men  and  women  by  types.  And  I  doubt  very  much  whether 
any  person  can  do  this  while  he  is  young.  In  most  cases 
the  talent  and  capacity  for  it  can  develop  only  in  middle 
life,  because  it  is  only  by  that  time  that  a  person  could  have 
the  proper  experience.  Therefore  I  could  not  recommend 
an  attempt  to  follow  this  method  at  the  beginning  of  a  lit- 
erary career,  though  I  should  strongly  recommend  every 
conceivable  cultivation  of  the  powers  which  may  render  it 
possible.  Remember  that  in  addition  to  experience  it  re- 
quires a  natural  faculty  of  perception  as  vivid  as  that  of  a 
painter.  I  have  mentioned  one  name  only  in  relation  to 
this  kind  of  work,  but  I  should  also  call  your  attention  to 
such  stories  as  those  of  Prosper  Merimee — "Carmen," 
"Matteo  Falcone."  Occasionally  you  will  find  stories  by 
Daudet,  especially  the  little  stories  of  the  war  between 
France  and  Germany,  showing  the  method  in  question. 
But  in  these  the  style  is  usually  somewhat  mixed;  there  is 
some  description  attempted,  showing  a  personal  feeling.  In 
the  best  work  of  Maupassant  and  of  Merimee,  the  personal 
element  entirely  disappears.  There  is  no  description,  ex- 
cept in  some  conversational  passages  put  into  the  mouth  of 
another  person ;  there  are  only  facts,  but  they  are  facts  that 
"take  you  by  the  throat,"  to  use  a  familiar  expression. 

I  am  sure  that  you  are  not  yet  quite  satisfied  by  these 
definitions,  or  attempts  at  definitions,  of  the  two  working 
methods.  I  suppose  that  there  are  among  you  some  good 
writers  capable  of  writing  in  a  few  weeks,  or  even  in  a  few 
days,  a  story  which,  if  published  in  a  Japanese  periodical, 


ON  COMPOSITION  57 

would  please  thousands  of  readers,  and  would  bring  tears 
perhaps  to  many  eyes.  I  do  not  doubt  your  powers  to  please 
the  public,  to  excite  their  emotions,  to  strengthen  their  best 
sentiments;  and  I  have  said  that  it  is  the  office  of  literature 
to  do  this.  But  if  you  ask  me  whether  I  would  call  this 
work  literature,  I  should  answer  "No;  that  is  journalism. 
It  is  work  which  has  been  quickly,  and  therefore  imperfectly 
done.  It  is  only  the  ore  of  literature;  it  is  not  literature  in 
the  true  sense."  But  you  will  say,  "The  public  calls  it  lit- 
erature, accepts  it  as  literature,  pays  for  it  as  literature — 
what  more  do  you  want1?" 

I  can  best  explain  by  an  illustration.  Next  to  the  Greeks, 
the  Arabs  were  perhaps  the  most  skilful  of  poets  and  artists 
in  describing  beauty  in  words.  Every  part  of  the  body  had 
a  beauty  of  a  special  kind;  and  this  special  beauty  had  a  spe- 
cial name.  Furthermore  all  beauty  was  classified,  ranked. 
If  a  woman  belonged  to  the  first  rank  of  beauty,  she  was 
called  by  a  particular  name,  signifying  that  when  you  saw 
her  the  first  time  you  were  startled,  and  that  every  time  that 
you  looked  at  her  again  after  that,  she  seemed  to  become 
more  and  more  and  more  beautiful  until  you  doubted  the 
reality  of  your  own  senses.  A  woman  who  belonged  only 
to  the  second  class  of  beauty,  would  charm  you  quite  as 
much  the  first  time  that  you  saw  her;  but  after  that,  when 
you  looked  at  her  again  you  would  find  that  she  was  not 
so  beautiful  as  you  had  thought  at  first.  As  for  women  of 
the  third,  fourth,  fifth,  sixth  and  seventh  classes  of  beauty, 
it  is  only  necessary  to  say  that  the  same  rule  held  good; 
more  and  more  defects  would  show  themselves,  according 
to  the  class,  upon  familiarity.  Now  the  difference  between 
cheap  emotional  literature  of  the  journalistic  sort  and  true 
literature,  is  exactly  of  the  same  kind.  Cheap  literature 
pays  best  for  the  time  being,  and  great  literature  scarcely 
pays  at  all.  But  a  great  story  written  by  a  master  seems 
more  and  more  beautiful  every  time  that  you  read  it  over 
again;  and  through  generations  and  centuries  it  seems  to  be 


58  ON  COMPOSITION 

more  and  more  beautiful  to  those  who  read  it.  But  cheap 
literature,  although  it  pleases  even  more  the  first  time  that  it 
was  read,  shows  defects  upon  a  second  reading,  and  more 
defects  upon  a  third  reading,  and  still  more  upon  a  fourth 
reading,  until  the  appearance  of  the  defects  spoils  all  the 
pleasure  of  the  reader,  and  he  throws  away  the  book  or 
the  story  in  disgust.  So  do  the  public  act  in  the  long  run. 
What  pleases  them  today  they  throw  away  tomorrow;  and 
they  are  right  in  throwing  it  away,  because  it  does  not  rep- 
resent careful  work. 

One  more  general  observation  may  be  made,  though  you 
should  remember  that  all  general  statements  involve  excep- 
tions. But  bearing  this  in  mind,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  what  are  called  classics  in  any  language  are  classics 
because  they  represent  perfect  workmanship,  and  that  books 
which  are  not  classics  usually  represent  imperfect  work- 
manship. 

Ill 

The  next  subject  to  consider  will  be  construction — that 
is  to  say,  the  architecture  of  the  composition,  the  first  rules 
for  putting  the  thing  together. 

The  most  common  difficulty  of  literary  work  is  how  to 
begin.  Everybody,  all  over  the  world,  is  troubled  just  this 
way.  A  boy  is,  to  whom  you  give  a  subject  and  tell  him  to 
write  about  it.  How  shall  I  begin1?  The  greatest  poets, 
the  greatest  essayists,  the  greatest  dramatists  are  not  all  su- 
perior to  this  weakness.  They  all  have  to  ask  themselves 
the  same  question  at  times.  The  beginning  is  the  difficulty. 
But  the  experienced  learn  how  to  avoid  it.  I  believe  that 
most  of  them  avoid  the  trouble  of  beginning  by  very  sim- 
ple means. 

What  means'? 

By  not  beginning  at  all. 

This  may  require  a  little  explanation.  In  the  old  days 
there  were  rules  for  beginning,  just  as  there  were  rules  for 


ON  COMPOSITION  59 


W  111 

the 


everything  else.     Literature  was  subjected  to  the  same  im- 
position of  rhetoric  as  were  other  compositions.     We  shall 

1  have  more  to  say  about  this  when  we  come  to  the  subject  of 
style.     In  history,  in  the  critical  essay,  above  all  in  phil- 

;'  osophy,  a  beginning  is  very  necessary.  Scope  and  plan  must 
be  determined  beforehand.  You  must  know  what  you  want 
to  say,  and  how  you  intend  to  say  it,  and  how  much  space 
will  be  required  for  saying  it.  Serious  and  solid  work  of 
purely  intellectual  kind  must  be  done  according  to  a 
fixed  and  logical  method.  I  am  sure  that  I  need  not  ex- 
plain why.  But  it  is  quite  otherwise  in  regard  to  poetry 
and  other  forms  of  emotional  and  imaginative  literature. 
The  poet  or  the  story-teller  never  gets  the  whole  of  his  in- 
spiration at  once;  it  comes  to  him  only  by  degrees,  while 
he  is  perfecting  the  work.  His  first  inspiration  is  only  a 
sudden  flash  of  emotion,  or  the  sudden  shock  of  a  new  idea, 
which  at  once  awakens  and  sets  into  motion  many  confused 
trains  of  other  interrelated  emotions  and  ideas.  It  ought 
to  be  obvious,  therefore,  that  the  first  inspiration  might  rep- 
resent not  the  beginning  of  anything,  but  the  middle  of  it, 
or  the  end. 

I  was  startled  some  years  ago  in  Kyoto  while  watching  a 
Japanese  artist  drawing  horses.  He  drew  the  horses  very 
well;  but  he  always  began  at  the  tail.  Now  it  is  the  West- 
ern rule  to  begin  at  the  head  of  the  horse ;  that  is  why  I  was 
surprised.  But  upon  reflection,  it  struck  me,  that  it  could 
not  really  make  any  difference  whether  the  artist  begins  at 
the  head  or  the  tail  or  the  belly  or  the  foot  of  the  horse,  if 
he  really  knows  his  business.  And  most  great  artists  who 
really  know  their  business  do  not  follow  other  people's  rules. 
They  make  their  own  rules.  Every  one  of  them  does  his 
work  in  a  way  peculiar  to  himself;  and  the  peculiarity  means 
only  that  he  finds  it  more  easy  to  work  in  that  way.  Now 
the  very  same  thing  is  true  in  literature.  And  the  question, 
"How  shall  I  begin  ?"  only  means  that  you  want  to  begin  at 
the  head  instead  of  beginning  at  the  tail  or  somewhere  else. 


60  ON  COMPOSITION 

That  is,  you  are  not  yet  experienced  enough  to  trust  to  your 
own  powers.  When  you  become  more  experienced  you  will 
never  ask  the  question;  and  I  think  that  you  will  often  be- 
gin at  the  tail — that  is  to  say,  you  will  write  the  end  of  the 
story  before  you  have  even  thought  of  the  beginning. 

The  working  rule  is  this:  Develop  the  first  idea  or  emo- 
tion that  comes  to  you  before  you  allow  yourself  to  think 
about  the  second.  The  second  will  suggest  itself,  even  too 
much,  while  you  are  working  at  the  first.  If  two  or  three 
or  four  valuable  emotions  or  ideas  come  to  you  about  the 
same  time,  take  the  most  vigorous  of  them,  or  the  one  that 
most  attracts  you  to  begin  with,  unless  it  happens  to  be  also 
the  most  difficult.  For  the  greater  number  of  young  writers 
I  should  say,  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance,  and  take 
the  easiest  work  first.  It  does  not  matter  at  all  whether 
it  is  to  belong  to  the  middle  or  to  the  end  or  to  the  begin- 
ning of  a  story  or  poem.  By  developing  the  different  parts 
or  verses  separately  from  each  other,  you  will  soon  dis- 
cover this  astonishing  fact,  that  they  have  a  tendency  to 
grow  together  of  themselves,  and  into  a  form  different  from 
that  which  you  first  intended,  but  much  better.  This  is 
the  inspiration  of  form  as  construction.  And  if  you  try  al- 
ways to  begin  at  the  beginning,  you  are  very  likely  to  miss 
this  inspiration.  The  literary  law  is,  let  the  poem  or  the 
story  shape  itself.  Do  not  try  to  shape  it  before  it  is  nearly 
done.  The  most  wonderful  work  is  not  the  work  that  the 
author  shapes  and  plans;  it  is  the  work  that  shapes  itself, 
the  work  that  obliges  him,  when  it  is  nearly  done,  to  change 
it  all  from  beginning  to  end,  and  to  give  it  a  construction 
which  he  had  never  imagined  at  the  time  of  beginning  it. 

You  will  see  that  these  rules,  results  of  practical  experi- 
ence, and  perfectly  well  known  to  men  of  letters  in  every 
country  of  Europe,  are  exactly  the  opposite  of  the  rules 
taught  in  schools  and  universities.  The  student  is  always 
told  how  to  begin,  and  always  puzzles  himself  about  a  be- 
ginning.    But  the  men  who  make  literature,  the  poets,  the 


ON  COMPOSITION  61 

great  story-tellers  of  the  highest  rank — they  never  begin. 
At  least,  they  never  begin  at  the  beginning  according  to 
rule;  they  draw  their  horses  from  the  hoof  or  the  tail  much 
more  often  than  from  the  head. 

That  is  all  that  I  have  to  say  about  construction.  You 
may  think  this  is  very  little.  I  reply  that  it  is  quite  enough. 
Instinct  and  habit  will  teach  all  the  rest;  and  they  are 
better  masters  than  all  grammarians  and  rhetoricians. 
What  a  man  can  not  learn  by  literary  instinct,  and  can  not 
acquire  by  literary  habit,  he  will  never,  never  be  able  to 
obtain  from  rules  or  books.  I  am  afraid  that  some  of  these 
opinions  may  seem  very  heretical,  but  I  must  now  be  guilty 
of  a  much  greater  heresy,  when  I  introduce  you  to  my  ideas 
about  style.  I  think — in  fact  I  feel  quite  sure — that  every- 
thing which  has  been  written  upon  the  subject  of  style  is 
absolute  nonsense,  because  it  mistakes  results  for  causes. 
I  hold  that  such  writing  has  done  immense  injury  to  the  lit- 
erary student  in  every  part  of  the  world;  and  I  propose  to 
prove  to  you  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  style. 

IV 

I  suppose  you  will  ask  me,  "Why  do  you  talk  to  us  about 
the  styles  of  Macaulay  and  Burke  and  Ruskin,  if  you  do 
■  not  believe  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  style'?"  I  will 
answer  that  it  is  my  duty  in  lectures  to  explain  as  far  as 
I  can  the  reasons  why  different  writers  are  valued;  and  in 
order  to  do  this  I  must  use  the  word  "style"  because  it  is  cus- 
tomary, and  because  it  indicates  something.  But  the  gen- 
eral notion  attaching  to  that  something  is  wrong.  What 
was  called  "style"  no  longer  exists.  What  is  called  "style" 
ought  to  be  called  something  else — I  should  say  "char- 
acter." 

If  you  look  at  the  dictionary  you  will  find  various  defini- 
tions of  the  word  "style,"  but  all  these  can  be  reduced  to  two. 
The  first,  or  general  style,  is  simply  rhetorical ;  it  means  the 


62  ON  COMPOSITION 

construction  of  sentences  according  to  a  complete  set  of 
rules,  governing  the  form  and  proportion  of  every  part  of 
the  sentence.  This  once  was  style.  There  was  a  time  when 
everybody  was  supposed  to  write  according  to  the  same 
rules,  and  in  almost  exactly  the  same  way.  We  might  ex- 
pect that  work  done  by  different  individuals  according  to 
such  rules  would  be  all  very  much  alike;  and  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  there  was  a  great  likeness  in  the  styles  of  French 
and  English  writers  during  the  time  that  classical  rules  of 
composition  were  in  force.  I  suppose  you  know  that  by 
classical  I  mean  rules  obtained  from  study  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  writers.  The  effort  of  Western  men  of  letters  during 
the  late  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  centuries  was  to 
imitate  the  old  classics.  So  they  had  rules  and  measures 
for  everything,  for  every  part  of  a  sentence,  and  for  the  posi- 
tion of  every  word.  Therefore  the  styles  did  greatly  re- 
semble each  other.  In  France  the  similarity  I  refer  to  was 
greater  than  in  England,  the  French  being  a  more  perfect 
language,  and  much  closer  to  Latin  than  English.  For  ex- 
ample, you  would  find  it  very  hard  to  distinguish  the  style  of 
a  story  written  by  Diderot  from  the  style  of  a  story  written 
by  Voltaire.  The  Encyclopedists,  as  they  are  called,  wrote 
very  much  after  the  same  fashion.  But  a  fine  critic  could 
detect  differences,  nevertheless.  For  no  matter  how  exact 
the  rules  might  be,  the  way  of  obeying  them  would  differ 
according  to  differences  of  character,  mental  character;  I 
need  scarcely  tell  you  that  no  two  minds  think  and  feel  in 
exactly  the  same  way.  These  differences  of  individual 
thinking  and  feeling  necessarily  give  a  slightly  different  tone 
to  the  work  of  each  writer,  even  in  the  most  rigid  period  of 
classical  style.  And  this  difference  of  tone  is  what  we  call 
style  today — after  the  old  classical  rules  have  been  given 
up.  But  there  is  still  much  popular  error  upon  the  subject 
of  individual  style.  People  think  still  with  the  ideas  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  They  think  that  there  are  rules 
for  individual  style,  because  there  are  rules  for  classical 


ON  COMPOSITION  63 

style.  They  think  that  when  we  talk  of  the  style  of  Macau- 
lay  or  Froude,  of  Arnold  or  of  De  Quincey,  we  mean 
certain  rules  of  composition  by  which  the  literary  method 
of  one  man  can  be  known  from  that  of  another.  I  should 
like  to  see  any  man  living  attempt  to  define  these  rules. 
The  authors  themselves  could  not  define  them.  There  are 
no  such  rules.  This  is  altogether  an  error — and  a  very  seri- 
ous error.  The  differences  are  not  due  to  any  definable 
rules  at  all;  they  are  due  entirely  to  individual  differences 
of  character.  And  therefore  I  say  that  style,  in  the  mod- 
ern meaning  of  the  word,  is  character. 

This  remains  to  be  proved.  Let  us  see  what  any  author's 
style  means  today.  It  means  that  his  method  of  construct- 
ing sentences  differs  appreciably  from  the  method  in  which 
other  men  construct  their  sentences.  And  how  is  the  differ- 
ence shown?     Chiefly  in  three  ways: 

1.  By  a  certain  metrical  form  of  sentence  peculiar  to 
the  writer. 

2.  By  a  certain  quality  of  sound — sonority — in  the  sen- 
tence, not  due  merely  to  measure,  but  to  a  sense  of  the  musi- 
cal value  of  words. 

3.  By  choice  of  words  giving  particular  impressions  of 
force  or  colour. 

Now  how  can  we  define  and  illustrate  these  three  pecul- 
iarities in  any  writer1?  I  say  that  it  cannot  be  done.  One 
might,  as  Mr.  Saintsbury  did,  take  some  sentences  from  the 
Bible,  or  from  any  volume  of  rich  prose,  and  arrange  the 
sentences  so  as  to  show  their  measure  and  accent,  by  the 
same  means  that  the  accent  and  measure  of  poetry  can  be 
shown.  But  even  thus  the  cadences  could  not  be  shown. 
In  order  to  show  the  cadence  we  should  have  to  adopt  the 
suggestion  of  a  very  clever  American  man-of-letters,  Sidney 
Lanier,  and  set  the  sentence  to  music — I  mean  write  it  with 
a  musical  notation  above  every  word,  in  addition  to  the  use 
of  accents  and  feet.  So  much  might  be  done.  But  there 
would  still  remain  the  impossible  task  of  denning  an  author's 


64  ON  COMPOSITION 

conception  of  word  values.  Words  are  very  much  like  liz- 
ards; they  change  colour  according  to  position.  Two  dif- 
ferent writers  using  the  same  word  to  express  the  same  idea 
can  give  to  that  word  two  entirely  different  characters,  for 
much  depends  upon  the  place  of  the  word  in  the  sentence, 
or,  in  simpler  language,  upon  the  combination  to  which  it 
belongs.  And  all  this  work  is  more  or  less  unconscious  on 
the  author's  part.  He  chooses  not  by  rule,  but  by  feeling, 
by  what  is  called  the  literary  instinct.  ^Attempts  have  been 
made  to  define  differences  of  this  kind  as  exhibited  in  the 
styles  of  different  authors  by  counting  and  classifying  the 
verbs  and  adjectives  and  adverbs  used  by  each.  These  at- 
tempts resulted  in  nothing  at  all.  The  same  thing  has  been 
tried  in  regard  to  poetry.  How  many  times  Tennyson  uses 
the  adjective  "red"  and  how  many  times  Swinburne  uses 
the  adjective  "red"  may  be  interesting  to  know;  but  it  will 
not  help  us  in  the  least  to  understand  why  the  value  of  the 
same  adjective  as  Tennyson  uses  it  is  quite  different  from 
the  value  it  obtains  as  used  by  Swinburne.  All  such  differ- 
ences must  be  due  to  psychological  differences;  therefore 
again  I  say  that  style  is  character. 

And  here  let  me  utter  a  word  of  warning  as  to  the  use- 
lessness  of  trying  to  study  "style"  in  modern  English 
authors.  I  have  often  been  asked  by  students  whom  they 
should  read  for  the  study  of  style — and  other  questions  of 
that  kind,  showing  that  they  did  not  understand  what  style 
really  is.  I  must  even  venture  to  say  that  no  Japanese 
student  who  has  not  spent  a  great  many  years  away  from 
Japan,  can  possibly  understand  differences  of  foreign  style. 
The  reason  must  be  obvious.  To  appreciate  differences  of 
style  in  foreign  authors,  you  must  have  an  absolutely  per- 
fect knowledge  of  the  foreign  language;  you  must  know  all 
its  capacities  of  rhythm,  accent,  sonority,  and  colour.  You 
must  know  the  comparative  values  of  one  hundred  thousand 
words — and  that  for  you  is  impossible.  Therefore,  so  far 
as  foreign  literature  is  concerned,  do  not  trouble  yourselves 


ON  COMPOSITION  65 

trying  to  understand  anything  about  style  which  does  not 
depend  upon  old  forms  of  rhetoric.  And  even  if  you  should 
learn  enough  of  the  old  rules  to  understand  all  the  rules  and 
sub-rules  for  the  construction  of  an  eighteenth  century  sen- 
tence, the  want  of  training  in  Greek  and  Latin  would  make 
that  knowledge  almost  useless  to  you.  Style  can  be  studied 
by  you  only  in  a  very  vague  way.  But  I  hold  that  way  to 
be  the  most  important,  because  it  means  character.  What 
I  have  just  said  is,  of  course,  a  digression,  because  it  is  of 
Japanese  and  not  of  English  composition  that  I  am  now 
going  to  speak. 

Here  you  must  recognize  that  I  am  sadly  hampered  by 
my  absolute  ignorance  of  the  Japanese  language.  There 
are  many  things  that  I  should  like  to  talk  to  you  about 
which  it  is  out  of  my  power  to  talk  of  for  this  reason.  But 
there  are  general  facts,  independent  of  differences  of  lan- 
guage; and  I  believe  that  by  keeping  to  those  I  shall  not 
speak  altogether  in  vain.  In  Japanese,  or  in  any  other 
language,  the  style  of  the  writer  ought  to  represent  char- 
acter, if  any  style,  except  a  purely  conventional  one,  be 
possible.  --And  now  what  I  want  to  say  is  this :  If  any  writer 
does  his  best  to  perfect  his  work,  the  result  of  the  pains  that 
he  takes  will  be  style  in  the  true  sense.  That  is,  his  work 
will  have  an  individuality,  a  character  about  it,  differentiat- 
ing it  from  all  other  work  on  the  same  subject.  It  will  be 
recognizably  his,  just  as  much  as  his  face  or  his  way  of 
talking  belongs  to  him  and  not  to  anybody  else.  But  just 
in  the  same  degree  to  which  he  does  not  take  pains  there 
will  be  less  evidence  of  character,  therefore  less  style.  The 
work  of  many  clumsy  people  will  be  found  to  have  a  general 
family  resemblance.  The  work  of  the  truly  energetic  and 
painstaking  will  be  found  to  differ  prodigiously.  The 
greater  the  earnestness  and  the  labour,  the  more  marked  the 
style.  And  now  you  will  see  what  I  am  coming  at — that 
style  is  the  outcome  of  character  developed  through  hard 
work.     Style  is  nothing  else  than  that  in  any  country. 


66  ON  COMPOSITION 

Here  observe  another  fact.  In  the  general  history  of  lit- 
erature, wherever  we  find  a  uniformity  of  style,  we  find  no 
progress,  and  no  very  great  literary  achievements.  The 
classic  period  of  the  English  eighteenth  century  is  an  ex- 
ample. But  the  reverse  is  the  case  when  general  style  dis- 
appears and  individual  style  develops.  That  means  high 
development,  originality,  new  ideas,  everything  that  signi- 
fies literary  progress.  Now  one  bad  sign  in  the  English 
literature  of  the  close  of  the  present  century — that  is,  the 
English  literature  of  today — is  that  style  has  almost  disap- 
peared. There  is  a  general  style  again,  as  there  was  in  the 
first  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Out  of  a  hundred  Eng- 
lish novels  published  this  month,  you  would  scarcely  be 
able  to  tell  the  difference  between  one  author's  writing  and 
another's.  The  great  stylists  are  dead,  except  Ruskin, 
and  he  has  ceased  to  write.  The  world  of  fiction  is  again 
governed  by  a  set  of  rules  which  everybody  follows;  and 
novel  writing,  as  well  as  essay  writing  (with  rare  excep- 
tions), has  become  a  trade  instead  of  an  art.  Therefore 
nothing  great  appears,  and  nothing  great  is  likely  to  ap- 
pear until  a  reaction  sets  in.  There  is  of  course  the  extraor- 
dinary genius  of  Kipling,  who  keeps  aloof  from  all  conven- 
tions, and  has  made  new  styles  of  his  own  in  almost  every 
department  of  pure  literature.  But  there  is  no  other  to 
place  beside  him,  and  he  probably  owes  his  development 
quite  as  much  to  the  fact  that  he  was  born  in  India  as  to  his 
really  astonishing  talent.  And  this  brings  me  to  the  last 
section  of  this  lecture — the  subject  of  language.  One  fact 
of  Kipling's  work,  and  not  the  least  striking  fact,  is  the 
astonishing  use  which  he  has  made  of  the  language  of  the 
people.  Although  a  consummate  master  of  serious  and  dig- 
nified style  when  he  pleases  to  be,  he  never  hesitates  to 
speak  the  speech  of  the  streets  when  he  finds  that  it  serves 
his  purpose  better.  Well,  remember  that  Emerson  once 
said,  "The  speech  of  the  street  is  incomparably  more  force- 
ful than  the  speech  of  the  academy." 


ON  COMPOSITION  67 


I  now  hope  that  you  will  have  a  little  patience  with  me, 
as  I  am  going  to  speak  against  conventions.  I  believe  that 
Japanese  literature  is  still  to  a  great  extent  in  its  classic 
state,  that  it  has  not  yet  freed  itself  from  the  conventions  of 
other  centuries,  and  that  the  full  capacities  of  the  language 
are  not  expressed  in  its  modern  productions.  I  believe  that 
to  write  in  the  vernacular,  the  every  day  speech  of  conversa- 
tion and  of  the  people,  is  still  considered  vulgar.  And  I 
must  venture  to  express  the  hope  that  you  will  eventually 
fight  boldly  against  these  conventions.  I  think  that  it  is 
absolutely  essential.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  new  Jap- 
anese literature  can  come  into  existence,  and  influence  life 
and  thought  and  national  character,  and  create  for  Japan 
what  she  very  much  needs,  literary  sympathy,  until  Japan 
has  authors  who  will  not  be  afraid  to  write  in  the  true 
tongue  of  the  people.  One  thing  is  certain,  that  the  change 
must  come.  Whoever  helps  it  to  come  will  be  doing  his 
country  an  inestimable  service,  for  so  long  as  literature  is 
shaped  only  to  the  understanding  of  a  special  class  of  edu- 
cated persons,  it  cannot  influence  the  nation  at  all.  The 
educated  classes  of  any  country  represent  but  a  very  small 
portion  of  the  great  whole.  They  must  be  the  teachers; 
yet  they  can  not  teach  in  the  language  of  the  academy. 
They  must  teach  in  the  language  of  the  people,  just  as  Wyc- 
liffe,  and  Chaucer,  and  other  great  Englishmen  of  letters 
once  found  it  necessary  to  do  in  order  to  create  a  new  public 
opinion.  Japan  will  certainly  need  a  new  popular  litera- 
ture; and  although  you  may  say  that  a  certain  class  of 
popular  literature  is  furnished  by  a  certain  class  of  writers, 
I  would  answer  that  a  great  popular  literature  cannot  be 
furnished  by  uneducated  persons,  or  by  persons  without  a 
large  range  of  knowledge;  it  must  be  furnished  by  scholars, 
or  at  least  by  men  of  taste,  who  are  willing  to  speak  to  the 


68  ON  COMPOSITION 

masses  in  their  mother  tongue,  and  who  care  to  touch  the 
hearts  of  the  millions.  This  is  the  true  object  of  literature 
in  any  country.  And  so  far  as  literary  expression  is  power, 
think  of  what  is  lost  by  allowing  that  power  to  be  cramped 
in  the  same  way  that  English  literature  was  cramped  a 
hundred  years  ago.  Here  is  a  man  who  can  delight  ten  or 
twenty  thousand  readers  of  culture,  but  who  can  not  be 
more  than  a  name  to  the  nation  at  large.  Here  is  another 
man  who  can  speak  to  forty  millions  of  people  at  once,  mak- 
ing himself  equally  well  understood  by  the  minister  in  his 
office  and  by  the  peasant  in  his  rice-field.  Who  is  the  great- 
est force1?  Who  is  able  to  do  most  for  the  future  of  his 
country?  Who  represents  the  greatest  power?  Certainly 
it  is  not  the  man  who  pleases  only  twenty  thousand  people. 
It  is  the  man  who,  like  the  young  English  poet  already  men- 
tioned, can  speak  to  all  his  countrymen  in  the  world  at  the 
same  time,  and  with  such  power  that  everybody  both  feels 
and  understands.  Recently  when  the  Russian  emperor  pro- 
posed disarmament  of  the  European  powers,  our  young  poet 
sent  to  the  London  Times  a  little  poem  about  a  bear — a 
treacherous  bear.  There  is  no  part  of  the  English  speaking 
world  in  which  the  poem  was  not  read;  and  I  am  quite  sure 
that  it  had  much  more  effect  on  English  public  opinion 
than  the  message  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia.  That  is  power. 
The  man  who  can  speak  to  a  hundred  millions  of  people  may 
be  stronger  than  a  king.  But  he  must  not  speak  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  academy. 


CHAPTER  IV 

NOTE  UPON  THE  ABUSE  AND  THE  USE  OF 
LITERARY  SOCIETIES 

As  I  have  been  asked,  on  various  occasions,  to  express  an 
opinion  as  to  the  use  of  literary  societies,  as  well  as  asked 
to  join  some  of  them,  I  have  been  thinking  that  a  short  lec- 
ture, embodying  my  beliefs  upon  the  subject,  might  be  of 
use  to  you.  It  is  not  at  all  necessary  that  you  should  ap- 
prove my  opinions;  but  I  am  sure  that  you  will  find  them 
worth  thinking  about,  because  they  are  based  upon  some- 
thing better  than  any  experience  of  my  own — the  experi- 
ence and  the  teaching  of  really  wise  men.  Let  me  begin, 
then,  by  saying  that  I  am  strongly  opposed  to  the  existence 
of  most  literary  societies,  and  that  I  believe  such  societies 
may  do  very  considerable  injury  to  young  talents. 

There  is  a  general  principle,  especially  insisted  upon  by 
Herbert  Spencer  in  his  Sociology,  which  applies  to  the 
world  of  literature  just  as  much  as  it  does  to  the  world  of 
political  economy,  or  the  world  of  industrialism.  That 
principle  is  this :  whatever  can  be  done  by  the  individual  in 
the  best  way  possible,  is  not  work  for  a  society  to  attempt, 
unless  this  society  can  greatly  improve  the  work  of  the 
individual.  You  know  that  sociologists  are  never  tired  of 
pointing  out  that,  even  in  the  case  of  private  companies 
and  state  undertakings,  the  private  companies  invariably  do 
the  better  work.  Of  course  the  larger  social  questions  con- 
nected with  competition,  lie  outside  of  my  province;  I  am 
reminding  you  of  them,  but  I  have  no  wish  to  dwell  upon 
them.  Only  remember  that  the  general  principle  is  ap- 
plicable to  all  forms  of  human  work  and  effort.  Co-opera- 
tion is  valuable  only  when  it  can  accomplish  what  is  be- 
yond the  power  of  the  individual.  When  it  can  not  ac- 
complish this,  it  is  much  more  likely  to  make  mischief  or 

69 


70  LITERARY  SOCIETIES 

to  act  as  a  check  than  to  do  any  good.  One  reason  for  this 
is  very  simple — co-operation  is  unfavourable  to  personal 
freedom  of  thought  or  action.  If  you  work  with  a  crowd, 
you  must  try  to  obey  the  opinions  of  the  majority;  you  must 
act  in  harmony  with  those  about  you.  How  very  unfavour- 
able to  literary  originality  such  a  condition  would  prove, 
we  shall  presently  have  reason  to  see. 

But  first  let  me  observe  that  all  kinds  of  literary  societies 
are  not  to  be  indiscriminately  condemned.  Some  literary 
societies  are  very  useful,  and  have  accomplished  great  serv- 
ices to  literature,  by  doing  for  literature  what  no  individual 
could  possibly  do.  For  example,  in  England  societies  have 
been  formed  for  the  editing  and  publishing  of  valuable  old 
texts.  The  Early  English  Text  Society  is  an  example,  one 
of  perhaps  a  score.  No  one  man  could  have  done  the  work 
of  this  society,  nor  the  work  of  the  Percy  Text  Society, 
nor  the  work  of  a  dozen  others  of  which  you  have  un- 
doubtedly heard.  Such  work  requires  a  great  deal  of 
money,  such  as  very  few  even  rich  men  could  spare,  and  it 
requires  a  vast  amount  of  labour,  beyond  the  capacity  of 
any  single  person.  Now  in  these  cases  hundreds  of  people 
contribute  money  to  support  the  work,  and  dozens  of 
scholars  are  thus  enabled  to  concentrate  their  efforts  in  a 
single  direction.  It  would  be  folly  to  say  that  societies  of 
this  kind  are  not  of  the  very  highest  value.  But  they  are 
valuable  only  because  they  do  what  individual  effort  could 
not  do. 

Again,  societies  formed  in  colleges  and  in  universities,  for 
the  purpose  of  encouraging  literary  effort,  or  debating,  or 
any  other  beginnings  in  the  great  arts  of  composition  or  of 
eloquence,  are  certainly  to  be  recommended.  They  are  to 
be  recommended  because  they  stimulate  the  novice  to  do 
many  things  which  he  might  not  have  self-confidence  to 
attempt  without  encouragement.  How  many  a  student 
must  have  first  discovered  his  own  abilities  in  the  direction 
of  oratory  or  poetry  or  fiction,  through  the  stimulus  that 


LITERARY  SOCIETIES  71 

his  college  society  first  gave  him.  He  thought  that  he  could 
not  make  a  speech,  but  one  day,  much  against  his  will,  he 
found  that  the  opinion  of  his  fellow  students  compelled 
him  to  make  a  speech,  and  the  result  was  that  he  proved  to 
be  better  qualified  than  others  to  do  what  he  had  imagined 
impossible.  So  with  the  first  efforts  in  many  directions. 
The  majority  forces  us  to  make  them;  and  in  such  instances 
the  influence  of  the  majority  is  to  develop  individual  power. 
But  I  will  still  sav  that  here  the  value  of  such  societies  be- 
gins  and  ends.  There  are  wonderful  societies  of  this  kind 
in  all  the  great  colleges  and  universities  of  the  world;  and 
they  help  to  develop  the  first  budding  of  talent,  the  first  lit- 
erary and  artistic  ambition.  But  the  best  of  them  never 
produce  anything  great.  They  work  with  raw  material; 
the  very  best  things  published  by  students  of  the  great  Eng- 
lish universities,  for  example,  are  always  somewhat  imma- 
ture. If  we  acknowledge  that  some  stimulus  of  a  healthy 
kind  is  given  to  literary  ambition  by  this  form  of  co-opera- 
tion, then  we  grant  about  all  that  can  be  granted. 

Once  that  the  individual  mind  blossoms  and  develops, 
from  that  moment  the  influence  of  societies  ceases  to  be  a 
benefit,  and  threatens  to  become  an  injury.  The  very  same 
social  opinion  that  compelled  and  encouraged  the  first  effort 
would  almost  certainly  oppose  itself  to  further  development 
after  a  certain  fixed  degree.  The  early  encouragement 
might  be  voiced  in  some  such  persuasion  as  this:  "Try  to 
show  yourself  as  clever  as  the  rest  of  us."  But  at  a  later 
time,  the  like  social  opinion  would  certainly  declare,  "You 
must  not  be  eccentric  and  think  so  differently  from  the  rest 
of  us.  If  you  do  think  that  way,  please  do  not  express 
your  opinions,  for  they  will  not  be  tolerated."  I  am  put- 
ting the  case  rather  strongly,  of  course.  But  the  second 
form  of  address  just  quoted  is  really  that  form  of  address 
which  the  world  uses  to  every  kind  of  original  talent.  The 
world  is  not  nearly  so  liberal,  generous,  appreciative,  as  the 
literary  societies  of  colleges  and  of  universities.     Public 


72  LITERARY  SOCIETIES 

opinion  is  above  all  things  conservative  in  almost  every 
direction  in  which  original  talent  aims.  Instinctively  it 
attempts  to  block  every  departure  from  conventional  ways 
of  thought  and  action.  And  any  mature  society  of  a  cer- 
tain average  size  is  pretty  sure  to  represent  public  opinion 
in  a  strong  form.  It  will  therefore  be  much  more  likely  to 
act  as  a  strangling  power  than  as  a  developing  power.  I 
would  venture  to  say,  however,  that  the  proper  conditions 
of  literary  independence  and  mutual  encouragement  in  a 
literary  society  must  depend  very  much  upon  the  number 
of  its  members.  And  I  should  put  the  number  very  low — 
so  low  that  I  think  you  will  be  rather  surprised  at  the  state- 
ment. I  do  not  think  that  a  literary  society  of  the  sort  to 
which  I  have  referred,  should  consist  at  any  time  of  more 
than  two  or  three  persons.  Combinations  of  three  have  been 
proved  both  possible  and  beneficial.  Any  larger  figure,  even 
four,  I  should  think  dangerous.  And  the  combination  of 
three  should  be,  I  think,  a  combination  of  differences,  not 
of  similarities.  The  durability  of  the  brotherhood  would 
depend  upon  mutual  appreciation,  not  upon  unity  of  ideal- 
ism or  singleness  of  opinion.  But  naturally  this  question 
comes  up,  "Can  we  call  a  fraternity  of  three  persons  a  lit- 
erary society?"  Perhaps  not;  yet  I  firmly  believe  that  any 
larger  combination  of  individuals  for  a  literary  purpose 
would  not  accomplish  any  good,  and  should  not  be  formed, 
except  for  such  purposes  as  that  of  giving  financial  aid. 
Now  I  shall  try  to  explain  why. 

Experience  among  professional  men  of  letters  tends  to 
show  that  there  is  but  one  way,  one  influence,  through 
which  they  can  really  assist  each  other  toward  the  realiza- 
tion of  higher  things — that  is,  friendship  and  sympathy. 
Friendship,  real  friendship,  admits  of  perfect  freedom  be- 
tween mind  and  mind,  perfect  frankness,  perfect  under- 
standing, and  therefore  complete  sympathy.  But  the  con- 
ditions of  human  nature  are  such  that,  even  among  common 
minds,  perfect  friendship  can  seldom  extend  to  any  con- 


LITERARY  SOCIETIES  73 

siderable  number  of  persons.  So  there  is  a  Spanish  proverb 
on  the  subject,  which  is  worth  quoting: 

Compania  de  uno,  compania  ninguno ; 
Compania  de  dos,  compania  de  Dios, 
Compania  de  tres,  compania  es ; 
Compania  de  cuatro,  compania  de  Diablo. 

Which  is  to  say,  one  is  no  company;  two  is  God's  company; 
three  is  company;  but  four  is  the  Devil's  company.  Now 
though  it  may  seem  funny,  this  proverb  is  really  wise,  as 
most  Spanish  proverbs  are;  for  it  signifies  that  a  perfect 
friendship  of  more  than  three  has  been  found  very  difficult. 
When  four  make  the  company,  a  division  of  opinion  or 
feeling  is  almost  certain  to  result;  for  two  will  be  apt  to 
unite  against  one  or  both  of  the  others,  when  some  vexed 
question  arises.  I  believe  that  you  must  have  known  this 
to  be  true  in  your  own  experience.  At  all  events,  a  literary 
association  made  for  real  and  serious  literary  objects  of  a 
high  class,  can  only  be  beneficial  and  enduring  if  built  upon 
friendship  and  sympathy;  and  friendship  and  sympathy  of 
the  quality  needed  can  not  be  expected  from  a  combination 
of  more  than  three. 

Perhaps  you  will  think  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  brotherhood, 
and  other  societies.  But  now  that  we  have  full  details 
about  these  societies,  we  find  that  they  were  societies  in 
name  rather  than  in  fact.  The  Pre-Raphaelite  society  ex- 
isted only  by  groups  of  three,  and  these  groups  touched 
each  other  only  at  long  intervals.  Moreover,  the  only  thing 
that  kept  the  threes  affiliated  even  by  the  thinnest  of  threads, 
was  a  certain  business  necessity.  I  believe  you  will  find 
in  the  history  of  English  literature  that  nearly  all  great 
men  have  been  solitary  workers,  and  have  had  remarkably 
few  friends.  Certainly  this  has  been  the  case  in  modern 
times.  I  can  not  think  of  any  way  in  which  a  literary 
combination  could  be  of  serious  value  to  a  serious  literary 
worker,  except  in  the  manner  that  I  have  indicated. 


74-  LITERARY  SOCIETIES 

You  will  perhaps  remember  that  in  England  and  in 
America  there  are  thousands  of  "literary  societies,"  that 
almost  every  country  town  has  a  literary  society  of  some 
kind;  indeed,  I  might  remark  that  even  in  Yokohama  and 
in  Kobe  the  foreign  merchants  have  made  a  "literary  so- 
ciety." But  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  these  societies 
are  literary  because  they  are  called  literary.  Do  not  be 
deceived  by  this  fact  of  the  popularity  of  literary  societies 
in  England  and  elsewhere.  Such  societies  are  formed  for 
purposes  of  which  the  average  student  has  no  idea.  They 
are  formed  for  purely  social  purposes,  to  bring  young  men 
and  women  together,  to  enable  parents  to  marry  their 
daughters,  to  enable  small  musicians  or  small  poets  or  popu- 
lar journalists  to  obtain  a  little  social  influence.  I  do  not 
care  how  big  the  society  may  be,  that  is  the  real  end  of  it. 
There  is  a  little  music,  a  little  speaking,  a  common-place 
essay.  Then  there  is  a  great  deal  of  introduction  and  of 
social  gossip.  This  is  only  a  commonplace  and  vulgar 
playing  with  the  subject  of  literature;  it  is  worse  than 
playing — it  is  pretending.  And  I  am  speaking  to  superior 
men,  to  educated  men.  As  a  university  man  must  take 
literature  seriously,  he  can  not  be  interested  in  nonsense  of 
the  sort  which  I  have  been  describing,  and  only  as  nonsense 
can  the  thing  exist  for  him.  You  do  not  find  real  men  of 
letters  bothering  themselves  with  societies  of  that  kind. 

Now,  to  sum  up,  I  will  say  that  literary  societies  of  a 
serious  character,  such  as  those  formed  in  universities,  and 
sometimes  outside  of  them,  have  this  value — they  will  help 
men  to  rise  up  to  the  general  level.  Now  "the  general 
level"  means  mediocrity;  it  can  not  mean  anything  else. 
But  young  students  of  either  sex,  or  young  persons  of  senti- 
ment, must  begin  by  rising  to  mediocrity;  they  must  grow. 
Therefore  I  say  that  such  societies  give  valuable  encour- 
agement to  young  people.  But  though  the  societies  help 
you  to  rise  to  the  general  level,  they  will  never  help  you 
to  rise  above  it.     And  therefore  I  think  that  the  man  who 


LITERARY  SOCIETIES  75 

has  reached  his  full  intellectual  strength  can  derive  no 
benefit  from  them.  Literature,  in  the  true  sense,  is  not  what 
remains  at  the  general  level;  it  is  the  exceptional,  the  ex- 
traordinary, the  powerful,  the  unexpected,  that  soars  far 
above  the  general  level.  And  therefore  I  think  that  a 
university  graduate  intending  to  make  literature  his  pro- 
fession, should  no  more  hamper  himself  by  belonging  to 
literary  societies,  than  a  man  intending  to  climb  a  mountain 
should  begin  by  tying  a  very  large  stone  to  the  ankle  of 
each  foot. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  what  I  have  said  against  the  serious 
value  of  literary  societies,  I  must  confess  I  myself  belong 
to  a  literary  society.  But  it  is  really  the  most  sensible 
society  of  the  kind  imaginable.  There  are  no  meetings 
which  one  is  obliged  to  attend;  there  is  no  demand  for 
literary  work  of  any  sort;  you  are  not  even  obliged  to  know 
the  other  members  of  the  society.  We  make  every  year  a 
contribution  of  money;  but  we  must  contribute  for  twenty 
years  and  never  get  anything  in  return.  Then  you  might 
ask,  what  is  the  use  of  such  a  society?  It  is  very  useful 
indeed.  Thousands  of  writers  belong  to  it,  but  very  few 
of  them  use  it.  The  object  of  the  society  is  to  provide 
money  for  the  employment  of  good  lawyers  to  defend  the 
interests  of  authors  against  dishonourable  publishers.  Au- 
thors are  generally  very  poor  men,  and  very  easy  to  take 
advantage  of  in  business.  To  go  to  law  with  a  publisher 
is  out  of  the  power  of  a  poor  man,  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten.  But  if  a  thousand  poor  men  get  together,  each  to 
contribute  every  year  a  small  sum  in  the  interests  of  right 
and  justice,  without  asking  any  direct  return  for  it,  then 
a  great  deal  may  be  done.  As  it  is,  the  society  employs 
very  skilful  lawyers  and  advisors.  If  any  one  member  of 
the  society  be  unjustly  treated,  all  the  others  thus  combine 
to  defend  him.  Now  that  is  an  illustration  of  what  a 
society  really  should  be  formed  for — only  to  do  for  each 
of  its  members  what  the  individuals  can  not  possibly  do 


76  LITERARY  SOCIETIES 

for  themselves.  Otherwise  there  is  absolute  independence. 
No  man  is  obliged  to  give  his  time  or  his  work  to  the  society 
at  home ;  there  is  no  literary  labour  attempted ;  all  the  legal 
work  is  done  by  persons  hired  by  the  society.  I  think  that 
a  society  of  that  kind  formed  with  the  general  object  of 
protecting  the  interests  of  Japanese  authors,  and  therefore 
of  protecting  the  growth  of  future  Japanese  literature,  would 
be  of  great  service.  But  otherwise  I  can  imagine  no  value 
to  university  graduates  in  a  literary  society  of  any  sort, 
containing  more  than  three  members. 


CHAPTER  V 
LITERARY  GENIUS 

(A  Fragment) 

Great  wits  are  sure  to  madness  near  allied, 
And  thin  partitions  do   their  bounds  divide. 

The  evidence  that  genius  has  some  relation  to  moral  weak- 
ness is  certainly  very  large.  Not  only  in  English  litera- 
ture, but  in  the  literature  of  all  European  countries,  we  find 
that  the  names  of  the  great  poets  are  generally  associated 
with  stories  of  unhappy  lives  and  bad  morals.  In  our  own 
lectures  upon  modern  English,  you  will  have  noticed  that 
such  men  as  Coleridge  and  Byron  and  Shelley  were  very 
weak  characters,  and  quite  out  of  harmony  with  their  sur- 
roundings. And  these  great  three  are  examples  of  hundreds 
of  lesser  men  who  were  equally  open  to  reproach,  but  who 
were  possessed  of  remarkable  literary  abilities.  Even  in  the 
history  of  English  drama,  we  find  that  a  large  proportion 
of  the  great  names  were  names  of  men  who  could  not  be 
considered  moral  in  any  sense  of  the  word — Shakespeare 
being  a  remarkable  exception.  French  literature  tells  pretty 
much  the  same  story,  from  the  time  of  Villon,  who  nar- 
rowly escaped  being  hanged,  to  the  time  of  Baudelaire  and 
of  De  Nerval,  both  of  whom  were  partly  insane.  But 
probably  the  proportion  of  men  of  genius  who  have  been 
either  insane  or  bad  is  not  so  large  as  has  been  supposed. 
Prejudice  must  always  be  taken  into  consideration  where 
we  deal  with  such  criticism.  But  you  will  find  criticism 
without  prejudice  accumulated  upon  this  subject  by  a  Mr. 
Calton;  and  the  evidence  is  very  strong  against  the  literary 
men. 

The  controversy  was  begun  by  the  work  of  an  Italian 

man  of  science,  Cesare  Lombroso,   a  professor  at  Milan. 

77 


78  LITERARY  GENIUS 

Lombroso  is  an  evolutionist,  and  all  his  lectures  are  based 
upon  the  evolutional  philosophy.  In  his  book,  "The  Man 
of  Genius,"  he  accumulated  a  great  number  of  facts  about 
the  morals  of  the  men  of  genius ;  and  he  inferred  from  these 
facts  that  genius  means  a  kind  of  insanity,  and  that  it  is 
usually  accompanied  with  physical  and  moral  weakness. 
He  argues,  with  a  great  show  of  reason,  that  men  of  genius 
exhibit  in  the  general  character  of  their  acts,  not  an  advance 
upon  the  morals  of  their  time,  but  a  reversion  to  the  morals 
of  a  former  age.  He  thinks  that  the  criminal  in  society 
represents  the  original  savage  man,  the  survival  of  instincts 
and  tendencies  older  than  civilization.  On  this  subject  his 
evidence  and  arguments  are  very  strong  indeed.  But  he 
also  regards  the  man  of  genius  as  being  in  some  degree 
related  to  the  criminal  rather  than  to  the  moral  type  of 
mankind.  His  book  at  once  inspired  a  German  writer, 
Max  Nordau,  to  compose  a  popular  work  on  the  same  topic. 
Nordau's  object  would  seem  to  have  been  to  please  the 
great  middle  class,  the  conventional  class  par  excellence, 
who  are  usually  incapable  of  understanding  genius,  but  are 
quite  delighted  to  find  something  bad  to  say  about  anybody 
who,  while  disobeying  conventions,  yet  manages  to  attract 
the  attention  of  superior  men.  When  you  find  that  a  person 
whom  you  dislike  is  undeniably  clever — is  able  to  do  some- 
thing which  you  cannot  possibly  do,  you  have  a  certain 
satisfaction  in  knowing  or  believing  that  his  higher  ability 
is  the  result  of  some  miserable  disease.  Nothing  flatters 
and  pleases  mediocrity  more  than  to  be  able  to  disparage 
superiority.  In  other  words,  Nordau's  book  was  an  appeal 
to  all  the  prejudices  and  meannesses  of  the  half-educated; 
and  it  had  an  immense  sale.  It  is  still  popular;  the  dullards 
of  society  have  been  fully  convinced  by  it  that  men  of 
genius  are  very  contemptible  persons,  in  most  cases,  prob- 
ably immoral,  and  usually  degenerate. 

Nordau  is  not  a  man  of  science ;  he  is  simply  a  clever  and 
cunning  journalist,  who  knew  how  to  make  money  by  a 


LITERARY  GENIUS  79 

misuse  of  Lombroso's  facts.  What  about  the  facts  them- 
selves? How  much  truth  are  we  to  allow  them*?  I  think 
that  a  reference  to  Spencer's  "Psychology"  would  have 
settled  the  whole  question  so  far  as  the  evolution  matter 
is  concerned.  The  "eccentricity  of  genius,"  as  Spencer  calls 
it,  really  represents  two  things;  the  opinions  of  Lombroso 
err  chiefly  in  the  direction  of  one-sidedness.  The  two  things 
represented  by  the  eccentricity  of  genius  are  likely  to  be 
higher  developments  and  degeneration — two  opposites. 
The  average  man  of  genius  is  likely  to  be  superior  to  other 
men  in  one  faculty,  and  inferior  to  other  men  in  other 
faculties.  The  reason  is  that  genius  can  only  be  produced 
at  a  tremendous  cost  to  the  vital  energy  of  the  being  in 
whom  it  exists.  There  are  for  this  several  reasons,  which 
I  shall  try  to  explain  in  the  easiest  way  possible. 

Let  us  first  take  it  for  granted,  as  we  must  do  scientifically, 
that  every  being  starts  into  existence  with  a  certain  quan- 
tity of  what  I  may  call  life-force.  The  force  may  differ 
considerably  in  different  men,  but  there  must  be  a  general 
average.  Let  us  say  that  this  average  force  would  under 
ordinary  circumstances  enable  a  man  weighing  a  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds,  standing  five  feet  and  eight  inches,  pos- 
sessing good  blood  and  faculties,  to  live  under  comfortable 
circumstances  to  the  age  of  eighty.  This  fact  you  will 
perceive  is  quite  easy  to  understand.  The  life-force,  how- 
ever, is  influenced  by  tendencies  that  we  know  very  little 
about,  hereditary  tendencies.  According  to  these,  it  may 
act  more  in  one  direction  than  in  another.  It  has  only  so 
much  material  to  work  with;  it  may  make  out  of  that  ma- 
terial a  great  many  different  things  or  differences  in  things. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ON  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM,  AND  THE 

CONTEMPORARY  RELATIONS  OF  ENGLISH 

TO  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

Nothing  is  more  important  for  the  student  who  loves 
literature  than  to  become  intimately  acquainted  with  its 
great  critics;  for  they  alone  can  guide  him  in  his  judgments, 
can  teach  him  to  distinguish  and  classify  merit,  and  can 
ultimately  enable  him  to  estimate  literary  values  for  him- 
self. There  are  critics  and  critics;  hundreds  of  them  are 
useless,  even  mischievous;  the  great  ones  alone  are  worth 
knowing,  those  few  men  to  whose  judgments  we  can  submit 
our  own  without  hesitation.  No  course  of  literature  could 
be  complete  without  some  mention  of  these;  and  I  must 
speak  to  you  today  of  the  best  living  English  critics  of 
English  literature.  There  are  good  French  critics  of  Eng- 
lish literature  also;  but  we  need  not  for  the  present  con- 
sider them.  A  remarkable  fact  is  the  small  number  of  really 
great  English  critics  of  English  literature  as  compared  with 
the  number  of  great  French  critics  of  French  literature. 
You  can  count  the  latter  by  dozens,  the  French  having 
obtained  supreme  excellence  and  supreme  ease  in  this  branch 
of  literature.  But  if  I  were  asked  to  name  the  great  Eng- 
lish literary  critics  of  today,  I  could  name  only  three.  It  is 
of  these  three  that  I  wish  to  speak. 

These  three  are  George  Saintsbury,  Professor  of  English 
literature  in  the  University  of  Edinborough ;  Edmund  Gosse, 
Professor  of  English  literature  in  Cambridge  University; 
and  Edward  Dowden,  Professor  of  English  literature  in 
Dublin  University.  These  are  pre-eminent.  With  some 
hesitation  might  be  added  to  these  names,  but  only  in  a 
second  or  third  class  capacity,  the  name  of  Stopford  Brooke, 

80 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  81 

whom  you  may  know  as  the  author  of  a  primer  of  English 
literature,  and  of  a  history  of  Anglo-Saxon  literature.  But 
we  have  to  concern  ourselves  now  only  with  the  work  of 
the  other  three. 

The  first  fact  to  observe  about  the  work  of  these  three 
is  the  degree  to  which  it  has  been  influenced,  directed  and 
coloured,  by  the  study  of  French.  Each  one  of  the  pro- 
fessors named  is  an  equally  good  authority  upon  French  as 
upon  English  literature;  and  two  of  them  have  written 
histories  o'f  French  literature.  The  best  work  upon  French 
literature  in  the  English  language  is  Saintsbury's  "Short 
History  of  French  Literature."  It  is  not  so  very  short  as 
the  name  might  imply.  It  is  accompanied  by  a  companion 
volume  entitled  "Specimens  of  French  Literature" ;  and  the 
two  should  be  studied  together.  Professor  Dowden,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  given  us  one"  excellent  volume  on  modern 
French  literature.  As  for  Mr.  Gosse,  a  great  number  of 
his  best  critical  essays  deal  with  French  subjects,  and  show 
the  results  of  French  study  upon  every  page.  I  believe  that 
all  of  these  men  are  furthermore  students  of  other  foreign 
literatures.  Mr.  Gosse  is  a  Scandinavian  scholar.  Mr. 
Saintsbury  knows  Anglo-Saxon  and  Provencal.  Mr.  Gosse, 
an  excellent  classical  as  well  as  modern  scholar,  has  also 
busied  himself  with  original  poetry,  and  the  study  of  verse 
in  many  languages.  Again  I  suppose  you  know  that  Pro- 
fessor Dowden  is  famous  as  the  biographer  of  Shelley — he 
provoked  Matthew  Arnold,  by  his  life  of  the  poet,  into  a 
very  celebrated  essay.  The  only  one  of  the  three  who  has 
attempted  no  creative  work  outside  of  criticism  is  Saints- 
bury.  Perhaps  for  that  very  reason,  he  is  the  strongest, 
concentrating  all  his  power  in  one  direction.  When  we 
come  to  think  of  the  acquirements  of  these  men,  it  is  im- 
possible not  to  wonder  at  their  powers  of  study.  To  master 
even  one  literature  is  the  work  of  an  ordinary  life-time. 
But  to  master  two,  or  even  three  literatures,  in  addition  to 
the  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome,  five  in  all,  is  certainly 


82  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

a  prodigious  feat.  It  is  something  which  reminds  us  of 
Gibbon's  tremendous  powers  of  reading  and  digesting  what 
he  read.  But  Gibbon  was  a  rich  man,  with  nothing  to  do 
except  to  please  himself.  England's  three  greatest  modern 
critics  are  comparatively  poor  men,  obliged  to  teach  in  order 
to  live. 

Of  the  three  the  greatest  charm  of  style  is  shown  by  Mr. 
Gosse.  In  the  course  of  this  lecture  I  may  quote  some 
passages  to  you,  in  order  to  show  you  how  very  exquisitely 
he  can  write.  This  exquisiteness  has  been  learned  chiefly 
by  the  most  careful  study  of  French  models.  There  are 
times  also  when  Mr.  Dowden  approaches  him.  Mr.  Saints- 
bury,  altogether  the  shrewdest  critic,  is  not  the  best  stylist. 
Sometimes  he  is  almost  careless,  though  he  can  perform 
miracles.  I  imagine  that  he  has  always  thought  it  more 
important  to  utter  the  thought  than  to  care  about  the  form 
of  the  utterance.  But  then,  consider  the  enormous  quantity 
of  his  work  on  two  literatures — his  history  of  French  litera- 
ture, his  history  of  Elizabethan  literature,  his  history  of 
nineteenth  century  literature,  and  his  volumes  of  essays,  and 
the  number  of  texts  edited  by  him.  He  has  done  the  work 
of  five  or  six  men;  and  if  he  had  given  more  attention  to 
style,  we  should  have  been  deprived  of  some  of  the  benefit 
of  his  knowledge. 

Concerning  the  opinions  of  any  one  of  these  three  critics,  I 
should  say  to  you,  "Submit  to  their  judgments."  If  any 
one  of  them  should  happen  to  be  unjust  in  a  single  case, 
he  would  certainly  be  right  in  ninety-nine  cases.  No  man 
is  infallible  in  literary  judgment.  The  nearest  approach  to 
the  infallible  in  literary  judgment  is  represented  in  the 
colossal  work  of  the  teacher  of  all  these  three,  the  greatest 
critic  that  ever  lived — not  an  Englishman,  but  a  French- 
man, the  wonderful  Sainte-Beuve.  I  have  said  that  he  was 
not  an  Englishman;  but  I  must  not  forget  to  add  that  his 
mother  was  of  English  descent.  He  was  born  in  1804  and 
died  in  1869,  so  that  he  is  a  very  modern  person.     It  was 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  83 

he  who  really  created  the  highest  art  of  criticism,  and  whose 
influence  entirely  changed  critical  methods  during  the  latter 
part  of  the  present  century.  He  was  the  critic  of  the  great 
French  romantic  movement  which  began  between  1820 
and  1830.  If  we  have  today  in  England  such  good  critics 
as  Saintsbury  and  Dowden  and  Gosse,  it  is  because  Sainte- 
Beuve  taught  them  how  to  be  critics.  I  do  not  mean  to  tell 
you  that  they  imitated  him;  indeed,  no  one  of  them  would 
agree  that  Sainte-Beuve's  method  should  be  followed  in  all 
things.  But  it  was  by  studying  his  method  that  they  made 
the  new  English  critical  method. 

We  must  say  a  few  words  now  about  criticism  in  general 
— what  it  means.  Put  into  the  simplest  language  possible, 
criticism  is  the  art  of  discovering  and  of  stating  what  is 
good  and  what  is  not  good  in  a  book.  The  old  fashioned 
criticism,  the  criticism  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  of 
the  centuries  before  it,  signified  very  little  in  the  modern 
meaning  of  the  word.  When  it  was  the  rule  that  a  subject 
should  be  chosen  in  a  certain  way,  and  ordered  in  a  certain 
way,  and  written  about  in  a  certain  way;  when  there  were 
fixed  laws  not  only  for  the  general  construction  of  a  sentence, 
but  for  the  construction  of  every  part  of  the  sentence,  and 
for  the  position  of  each  and  every  word  in  the  sentence — 
then  criticism  meant  very  little  more  than  censorship  and 
measurement.  A  thing  was  good  if  the  subject  was  con- 
ventional, if  the  language  was  conventional,  if  the  forms 
were  conventional.  On  the  other  hand  a  book  was  not 
praiseworthy  if  the  subject  or  the  language  or  the  thought 
was  not  according  to  the  old  fixed  rules.  Early  in  the 
nineteenth  century  higher  forms  of  criticism  made  their 
appearance.  Macaulay,  as  I  told  you  long  ago,  was  the 
founder  of  a  new  school  of  criticism,  which  consisted  in 
analysing  the  value  of  the  book  in  relation  to  moral  and 
aesthetic  ideas,  and  in  relation  also  to  the  whole  range  of 
the  subject  treated.  Macaulay  would  take  a  book  upon 
Italian  history,  for  example,  and  then  compare  what  it  con- 


84  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

tained  with  his  own  idea  of  the  whole  subject  of  Italian 
history;  then  he  would  consider  the  author's  ideas  in  rela- 
tion to  accepted  moral  ideas,  and  the  author's  sense  of  beauty 
in  relation  to  accepted  standards  of  beauty.  This  was  a 
much  larger  and  better  way  of  criticism  than  had  been  fol- 
lowed before,  but  it  was  still  far  from  perfect.  Macaulay 
belonged  by  taste  and  feeling  to  the  classical  school  of  the 
eighteenth  century;  his  standards  of  morality  and  ethics  and 
philosophical  truth  were  all  old-fashioned,  somewhat  nar- 
row, and  above  all  English.  Now  a  great  criticism  ought 
not  to  be  any  more  English  or  French  or  German,  than 
it  should  be  Greek  or  Hebrew  or  Sanskrit.  A  great  criti- 
cism should  be  equally  true  in  all  times  and  countries  and 
conditions.  For  the  highest  criticism  should  not  concern 
itself  with  any  questions  except  those  of  beauty  and  of 
truth — nay,  I  should  add,  eternal  beauty  and  eternal 
truth. 

Here  is  the  great  difficulty  about  criticism.  Let  us  con- 
sider for  a  moment  how  very  few  persons  are  capable  of 
judging  beauty  and  truth  apart  from  everything  else.  A 
man  who  has  been  brought  up  to  think  in  a  narrow  way 
may  not  be  able  to  see  beauty  or  truth  at  all.  A  pious 
Roman  Catholic  may  not  find  beauty  in  a  thing  not  written 
according  to  the  mediaeval  spirit  of  the  religion  to  which 
he  belongs.  Whatever  thought  is  contrary  to  the  teaching 
of  Christianity  of  the  middle  ages,  may  fill  him  with  horror. 
Again,  in  the  narrower  Protestant  creeds  the  education  given 
is  usually  anti-aesthetic  and  anti-scientific;  the  narrowness 
of  mind  produced  is  very  hard,  and  absolutely  hostile  to 
independence  of  expression  or  originality  in  feeling.  The 
religious  bias,  as  Spencer  calls  it,  is  almost  necessarily  op- 
posed to  fair  criticism.  Then  there  is  the  national  feeling, 
the  strong  prejudice  of  country  and  of  race.  The  average 
Englishman  cannot  consider  the  inhabitant  of  another  coun- 
try as  good  as  an  Englishman;  and  it  is  very  difficult  for 
him  to  acknowledge  the  superiority  of  anything  foreign. 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  85 

Well,  it  is  the  same  in  most  countries.  These  very  preju- 
dices have  their  usefulness;  they  keep  up  the  healthy  spirit 
of  race-pride — but  they  are  utterly  opposed  to  fair  criticism. 
Furthermore,  we  have  the  social  prejudices — those 
prejudices  which  prevent  a  man  who  belongs  to  the 
upper  class  of  society,  from  justly  considering  what 
concerns  the  lower  classes  of  society.  There  is  also  the 
prejudice  of  custom,  and  this  prejudice  extends  into  the 
highest  strata  of  the  intellectual  world.  The  old  generation 
refuses  to  accept  the  ideas  of  the  new;  the  new  despises  the 
old.  At  the  present  time  there  are  a  great  many  men  liv- 
ing who  were  educated  before  the  time  of  the  new  philoso- 
phy, who  know  nothing  about  it,  who  detest  it,  and  who 
cannot  consequently  understand  the  best  literature  of  our 
time.  For  a  man  with  the  ideas  of  the  eighteenth  century 
cannot  possibly  understand  a  poem  or  an  essay  nor  even  a 
thoughtful  story  written  by  one  who  thinks  according  to 
the  evolutional  philosophy.  Such  men — many  of  them  are 
great  scholars — think  they  can  understand  because  they  read 
the  words,  but  of  the  thought  behind  the  words  they  do  not 
perceive  anything.  This  is  only  one  of  many  examples. 
To  be  able  to  judge  the  beautiful  and  the  true,  our  minds 
must  be  free  from  all  such  influences  as  I  have  been  de- 
scribing— from  religious  prejudices,  from  the  prejudice  of 
ignorance,  from  national  prejudice,  from  race  prejudice, 
from  social  prejudice,  from  class  prejudice,  from  philosoph- 
ical prejudice.  How  many  men  can  free  themselves  from 
all  of  these'?  Certainly  very  few;  and  that  is  why  there 
must  always  be  very  few  great  critics — especially  in  Eng- 
land, where  all  conventions  have  a  more  vigorous  life  than 
they  have  in  almost  any  other  country. 

Now  to  return  to  the  subject  of  Sainte-Beuve.  Sainte- 
Beuve  made  himself  a  great  critic  not  only  by  getting  rid 
of  all  the  prejudices  which  I  mentioned,  but  by  studying 
them  and  understanding  them.  He  approached  the  vast 
subject  of  literature  only  after  having  prepared  himself  in 


86  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

a  most  extraordinary  way.  He  studied  medicine,  because 
medicine  is  in  itself  one  of  the  greatest  sciences  for  the 
development  of  the  mind  that  can  be  studied  without  any 
very  exceptional  faculties.  To  understand  men's  minds, 
men's  feelings,  one  must  indeed  first  know  something  about 
their  bodies;  and  in  choosing  this  study  Sainte-Beuve  some- 
what anticipated  the  evolutional  school  of  psychology,  which 
is  based  upon  a  knowledge  of  the  nervous  system.  But 
he  did  not  intend  to  become  a  doctor,  and  he  dropped  this 
study  when  he  had  learned  enough  of  it  to  satisfy  his  own 
mind.  Thereafter  he  studied  religion,  in  order  to  under- 
stand belief;  then  he  studied  all  forms  of  free  thought,  in 
order  to  understand  scepticism.  Subject  after  subject  he 
thus  took  up  and  investigated,  according  as  it  served  his 
purpose.  Becoming  one  of  the  most  learned  of  men  in 
general  knowledge  of  this  sort,  and  also  perhaps  the  most 
widely  read  man  of  his  time,  he  entered  upon  his  career  of 
critic — without  any  bias,  any  prejudice,  any  narrowness,  but 
with  a  great  love  of  beauty  in  every  form,  and  a  wonderful 
genius  for  finding  and  for  describing  it. 

Of  course  it  is  not  enough  to  have  read  everything  and 
to  know  everything  in  order  to  be  a  critic.  One  must  have 
been  born  with  intuitive  and  perceptive  faculties  of  an  ex- 
traordinary kind.  One  must  have  a  certain  kind  of  genius. 
It  is  very  much  like  the  difficulty  of  understanding  the 
characters  of  men.  Every  one  among  you  has  remarked 
that  some  persons  of  your  acquaintance  understand  men 
much  better  than  others  can  do;  they  are  born  with  that 
power;  and  all  the  experience  possible  would  never  make 
certain  other  persons  whom  you  know  able  to  exercise  the 
same  judgment.  Now  consider  what  a  great  book  is.  I 
think  that  there  is  no  better  definition  of  a  great  book  than 
the  definition  made  by  Victor  Hugo — the  book  is  the  man. 
And  some  of  you  who  heard  my  lecture  last  year  upon 
style  will  remember  that  I  then  said  style  is  nothing  more 
than  the  peculiar  character  of  the  writer.     Sainte-Beuve  saw 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  87 

this  truth  when  he  entered  upon  his  career  of  critic.  He 
perceived  that  to  understand  a  book,  the  reason  of  what  is 
good  in  it,  the  reason  of  what  is  bad  in  it,  the  reason  of 
the  influence  which  it  exerts,  we  must  understand  the  man 
who  wrote  it.  There  is  nothing  more  difficult  than  to 
understand  common  characters;  much  more  is  it  difficult  to 
understand  uncommon  characters.  A  man  is  the  product 
of  millions  of  years,  and  the  depth  of  him  is  the  depth  of 
the  whole  night  of  eternity.  Nothing  is  deeper  than  a 
mind,  nothing  is  more  difficult  to  learn.  As  I  said  before, 
one  must  be  born  with  the  power  to  study  minds  and  feel- 
ings; and  Sainte-Beuve  had  this  faculty. 

He  attempted  the  study  of  literature  in  a  way  that  no 
other  man  had  ever  thought  of  at  that  time.  He  would 
start  out  by  studying  the  character  of  an  author,  all  the 
details  of  his  life,  his  personality,  his  habits,  his  experi- 
ences. Next  he  would  consider  that  man  in  relation  to  the 
society  and  the  time  to  which  he  belonged;  he  would  try 
to  discover  to  what  extent  the  character  of  the  man  accorded 
with  the  character  of  that  time,  with  the  sentiments  and 
beliefs  and  ideas  of  that  society.  Then  he  would  consider 
the  sources  of  the  writer's  inspiration,  not  only  the  books 
that  he  had  read,  but  the  origin  of  the  ideas  in  those  books, 
tracing  back  the  thought  of  a  nineteenth  century  writer 
either  to  the  middle  ages  or  to  Greek  civilization,  or  to 
intellectual  influences  imported  from  Oriental  and  other 
countries.  Only  when  he  had  done  all  this  did  he  think 
himself  prepared  to  write  his  criticism.  Of  course,  you 
must  not  suppose  that  Sainte-Beuve  undertook  in  the  case 
of  every  writer  he  criticized  to  read  over  again  all  the  books 
which  that  author  had  studied,  and  all  the  books  relating 
to  the  time  in  which  he  lived,  and  all  the  books  treating  of 
the  subject  which  he  had  treated.  Not  at  all.  These 
things  he  already  knew.  He  had  read  them;  and  having  a 
memory  as  prodigious  as  that  of  a  Hallam  or  a  Macaulay, 
he  remembered  what  he  had  read. 


88  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

A  word  about  the  mass  of  his  work.  Much  of  it  first 
appeared  in  newspapers.  The  criticism  which  appears  in 
English  newspapers  is  not,  as  a  rule,  of  much  literary  value ; 
that  which  appears  in  American  newspapers  is  of  no  literary 
value.  But  much  of  what  appears  in  French  newspapers 
is  of  the  very  highest  literary  value.  French  journalism 
concerns  itself  much  less  about  news  than  does  other  Euro- 
pean journalism,  and  much  more  about  literature.  It  al- 
lows its  writers  plenty  of  time  to  do  their  work.  A  great 
deal  of  such  work  is  produced  at  the  rate  of  two  or  three 
short  articles  in  the  course  of  a  month.  Sainte-Beuve  con- 
tributed regularly  about  once  a  week,  or  four  times  a  month, 
to  certain  Paris  papers  what  he  called  his  "Monday  Talks'^ 
(Causeries  du  Lundi)  ;  and  these  Monday  Talks  became  the 
greatest  literary  events  of  the  week  in  Paris.  Besides  these, 
however,  he  produced  a  number  of  independent  literary 
studies  which  he  called  "Criticisms  and  Literary  Portraits" 
{Critiques  et  Portraits  Litter  aires')  ;  also  a  series  of  "Con- 
temporary Portraits"  (Portraits  Contemporains).  Pub- 
lished in  book  form,  these  alone  represent  fifty  or  sixty  large 
volumes.  But  a  more  important  production  still  was  his 
literary  and  philosophical  Histoire  de  Port-Royal  in  three 
volumes,  which  cost  him  alone  twenty  years  of  study.  In 
this  book  his  critical  power  was  manifested  in  the  very  high- 
est possible  form.  Perhaps  some  of  you  may  never  have 
heard  of  Port- Royal.  The  subject  is  not  closely  connected 
with  this  lecture ;  but  I  may  say  a  few  words  about  it.  Port- 
Royal  was  a  convent  situated  in  France  about  eight  miles 
from  the  King's  palace  of  Versailles,  during  the  seventeenth 
century,  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  At  Port-Royal  there  was 
a  very  peculiar  society  of  monks  and  nuns,  a  new  religious 
society  composed  of  ladies  and  gentlemen,  scholars  and 
philosophers  of  the  highest  accomplishments;  and  the  dream 
of  these  persons  was  to  make  a  reformed  Catholic  religion 
in  harmony  with  scientific  knowledge.  In  order  to  oppose 
the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  the  Port-Royal  people  became 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  89 

educators;  they  taught  religion  and  science  together;  they 
taught  nobly  and  liberally;  and  they  considered  truth  be- 
fore theology.  The  great  Pascal  was  one  of  their  friends, 
and  fought  for  them,  silencing  the  Jesuit  controversialists. 
The  religious  system  which  the  Port-Royal  people  adopted 
is  still  known  as  Jansenism,  so  called  from  Bishop  Jansen 
of  Ypres.  Then  began  a  bitter  war  between  the  Jesuits  and 
Port-Royal.  Having  greater  influence  at  Rome,  the  Jesuits 
first  got  the  Pope  to  condemn  the  doctrines  of  Port-Royal; 
then  they  went  to  work  politically  and  socially  to  crush  and 
ruin  the  institution.  After  many  years  they  were  success- 
ful. Port-Royal  was  made  bankrupt,  was  even  given  into 
their  hands.  Triumphantly  entering  into  the  deserted 
establishment,  they  destroyed  every  vestige  of  anything  that 
might  recall  the  memory  of  their  enemies.  There  was,  how- 
ever, something  they  could  not  destroy,  and  which  Sainte- 
Beuve  preserved  for  us — the  noble  thoughts  and  the  great 
truths  uttered  and  taught  by  the  vanished  society. 

Now  to  reconstruct  that  convent  at  Port-Royal,  to  re- 
people  it  with  the  forms  of  all  who  had  lived  and  died  there, 
to  make  us  not  only  see  the  faces  and  hear  the  conversation, 
but  even  know  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  dead,  was  a 
wonderful  bit  of  magic.  This  Sainte-Beuve  accomplished, 
and  more.  For  in  reconstructing  Port-Royal,  it  was  nec- 
essary for  him  also  to  resurrect  the  atmosphere  and  the  scen- 
ery of  the  time  of  Louis  XIV,  and  it  was  also  necessary  for 
him  to  teach  us  everything  about  the  conflicting  ideas  and 
emotions,  religious  and  social,  of  that  time.  But  in  all  his 
criticisms  he  has  done  magic  of  this  kind.  Criticism  by 
Sainte-Beuve  is  biographical;  it  is  historical;  it  is  philo- 
sophical; it  is  artistic.  Therefore  to  read  him  is  an  educa- 
tion. But  do  not  think  that  any  painful  effort  is  needed  to 
read  him.  Not  even  Macaulay  has  such  a  charm  of  style. 
Sainte-Beuve  teaches  by  the  use  of  pictures.  He  does  not 
discourse  only,  he  paints.  He  does  more  than  paint;  he 
puts  the  living  man  before  you  so  that  you  hear  his  voice, 


90  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

feel  the  touch  of  his  hands,  apprehend  the  soul-sympathy 
existing  between  yourself  and  him.  When  you  read  Sainte- 
Beuve,  the  dead  come  back  and  talk  to  you ;  and  as  in  dreams, 
you  forget  that  they  are  dead,  and  imagine  all  that  is  said 
and  done  to  be  as  real  as  it  is  natural. 

This  method  has  been  called  by  a  great  many  names. 
Most  of  these  names  are  inadequate.  It  has  been  termed 
naturalistic;  but  this  is  no  more  correct  than  it  would  be  to 
call  the  method  romantic.  There  is  only  one  name  that  it 
might  be  called  by — that  is,  the  method  of  Saint-Beuve.  It 
is  a  combination  of  every  possible  way  of  studying  and 
treating  any  subject  critically,  and  if  it  is  distinguishable  by 
anything  very  peculiar,  that  peculiarity  is  the  author's 
genius,  his  infinite  sympathy,  his  irreproachable  tolerance, 
his  profound  humanity.  I  imagine  that  this  humanity  is 
especially  shown  by  his  habit  of  studying  an  author  less 
through  the  admiration  of  his  friends  than  through  the 
hatred  of  his  enemies.  He  always  took  this  view  of  things, 
that  a  man  of  original  genius  can  not  be  in  perfect  harmony 
with  his  century;  that  he  cannot  therefore  be  in  perfect  ac- 
cord with  the  society  in  which  he  moves;  and  that  he  must 
therefore  be  disliked,  and  very  probably  persecuted  or  ca- 
lumniated. From  the  contempt,  the  abuse,  or  even  the  false- 
hoods that  have  been  uttered  or  manifested  towards  a  great 
man,  we  can  often  learn  more  about  him  than  we  can  learn 
from  the  praise  of  those  who  loved  him.  Of  course  this 
requires  extreme  superiority  of  knowledge  in  matters  of  psy- 
chology.    But  the  good  critic  must  be  a  good  psychologist. 

The  greatest  of  Sainte-Beuve's  pupils  was  the  historian 
Taine;  and  the  best  example  of  the  influence  of  Sainte-Beuve 
upon  Taine  is,  perhaps,  the  volume  written  about  the  char- 
acter and  life  of  Napoleon.  But  Taine  was  not  so  learned 
nor  so  clever  nor  so  sympathetic  as  Sainte-Beuve.  He  was 
apt  to  use  the  method  somewhat  one-sidedly — thus  show- 
ing, not  its  defects,  but  its  difficulties.  To  criticize  like 
Sainte-Beuve  one  must  be  as  generous  and  as  wise;  and  no 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  91 

living  critic  is  that.  But  the  method  of  Sainte-Beuve  will 
perhaps  be  still  more  perfected  in  the  future  by  other  great 
minds,  for  the  best  of  all  reasons — namely,  that  it  is  in 
perfect  accord  with  the  philosophy  of  evolution.  No  other 
method  of  criticism  is  exactly  that.  There  was  no  evo- 
lutional philosophy  when  Sainte-Beuve  was  young,  but  he 
might  be  said  to  have  in  a  certain  way  anticipated  it.  The 
innumerable  critics  who  today  follow  the  evolutional 
method,  I  mean  those  who  trace  the  history  of  anything  in 
literature  back  through  all  its  centuries  to  its  very  begin- 
ning, and  describe  how  the  thing  grew  and  budded  and 
blossomed — these,  for  the  most  part,  are  not  students  of  Her- 
bert Spencer;  they  are  imitators  of  Sainte-Beuve. 

.It  has  been  well  pointed  out  by  Professor  Saintsbury  that 
in  some  respects  the  influence  of  Sainte-Beuve  has  been  a 
little  mischievous.  Many  people  thought  that  they  could 
imitate  him  by  writing  foolishly  exact  biographies  of 
authors,  and  trying  to  connect  the  details  of  such  biographies 
with  passages  in  the  books  of  the  writers  discussed.  We 
have  now  every  year  hundreds  of  stupid  books  published, 
full  of  useless  and  impertinent  gossip  about  the  private  lives 
of  authors.  Now  Sainte-Beuve  really  never  did  anything 
of  the  kind.  He  never  mentioned  facts  about  an  author's 
private  life  except  when  these  facts  happened  to  have  partic- 
ular value  for  critical  use.  He  never  made  mistakes.  He 
never  made  misjudgments.  What  he  said  remains  as  true 
today  as  when  he  said  it,  and  will  remain  equally  true  for 
hundreds  of  years  to  come.  It  is  possible,  however,  only  for 
really  great  men  to  follow  his  system  successfully.  The 
three  English  critics  mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  this  lec- 
ture have  all  followed  it  to  some  extent.  One  of  them, 
Professor  Dowden,  not  only  acknowledges  his  immense  debt 
to  Sainte-Beuve,  but  assures  us  that  all  the  important  criti- 
cism during  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  owes 
an  equal  debt  to  Sainte-Beuve.  This  means  nothing  less 
than    that   all    the   existing   schools   of    English,    French, 


92  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

Italian,  German,  and  I  may  add  Russian  criticism,  have 
been  made  or  modified  by  Sainte-Beuve's  teaching.  We 
are  now  immeasurably  beyond  the  critical  method  of 
Macaulay,  great  as  Macaulay's  method  became  in  his  own 
hands. 

Let  us  return  to  the  special  subject  of  the  three  great  liv- 
ing English  critics,  and  their  relation  to  Sainte-Beuve.  Of 
the  three,  Saintsbury  is  much  the  least  attractive,  both  as  to 
style  and  method.  He  is  extraordinarily  compressed,  com- 
pact, condensed,  never  saying  more  than  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  express  his  meaning  clearly.  He  is  not  attractive  in 
any  sense  of  the  word,  not  a  writer  whom  you  can  love,  but 
he  is  a  writer  who  commands  your  respect.  And  he  com- 
mands it  in  strange  ways,  particularly  by  oppositions,  by 
contradictions,  by  astonishing  judgments  totally  at  variance 
with  the  judgments  of  other  great  critics.  Furthermore,  he 
is  provokingly  cautious.  Never  does  he  allow  himself  to  be- 
come enthusiastic  even  about  the  greatest  dead  writers ;  as  for 
living  writers,  he  makes  it  a  rule  never  to  speak  about  them 
when  he  can  help  it.  Unlike  Mr.  Gosse  and  Mr.  Dowden, 
he  has  none  of  that  literary  generosity  which  makes  new 
reputations.  Rather  he  is  a  destroyer  of  old  ones.  No 
critic  with  whom  I  am  acquainted  is  more  provoking  at 
times,  by  his  coldness,  by  his  quaint  manner  of  sneering,  by 
the  frigid  contempt  with  which  he  passes  over  great  names 
in  silence.  In  all  these  peculiarities,  you  will  find  that  he 
is  the  most  typically  English  of  the  three.  I  should  say  that 
he  has  all  the  repellent  qualities  of  the  Englishman  quite 
as  strongly  marked  as  the  good  qualities  of  the  Englishman. 
But  I  must  say  that  I  should  trust  him  most  of  all.  I  do 
not  believe  that  he  will  ever  mislead  you.  And  he  is  singu- 
larly free  from  prejudices.  Sometimes  his  sneer,  or  some 
single  sentence  expressing  contempt,  would  lead  you  to  be- 
lieve that  his  judgments  are  coloured  by  religious  or  by 
moral  prejudices.  But  it  would  be  easy  to  cite  judgments 
which  proved  the  contrary.     Observe  for  example,  his  emi- 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  93 

nently  just,  though  reserved,  praise  of  Huxley,  of  Hobbes, 
of  Mandeville,  of  others  who  were  strongly  opposed  to  ec- 
clesiastical influence.  Or  take,  on  the  other  hand,  his  severe 
criticism  of  WyclifTe.  Again  you  might  suspect  him  of 
prudishness,  the  great  English  hypocrisy  of  prudishness,  be- 
cause he  strongly  condemns  certain  immoralities  in  certain 
English  writers.  But  read  his  splendid  reviews  of  the  work 
done  by  writers  like  Carew  in  English,  work  as  unchaste  as 
anything  can  be ;  or  read  his  very  fine  appreciation  of  Bau- 
delaire, a  name  held  in  horror  by  prudes  both  in  France  and 
in  England;  or  read  his  estimates  of  French  writers  like 
Gautier,  Hugo,  Maupassant,  not  to  mention  older  French 
men-of-letters  who  went  quite  as  far  in  offending  against 
what  we  call  moral  standards.  He  has  certainly  impartial- 
ity enough  in  everything  relating  to  religion  and  ethics. 

As  I  have  said,  he  provokes.  He  tells  us,  for  example, 
that  Byron's  poetry  is  not  true  poetry,  that  it  is  pinchbeck, 
sham;  he  tells  us  that  it  is  about  as  much  like  true  poetry, 
as  the  painted  scenery  in  a  theatre  is  like  a  real  landscape. 
This  is  one  instance  of  what  you  may  expect  from  him.  He 
will  tell  you  that  there  is  not  even  one  page  of  Ruskin  which 
does  not  contain  some  untrue  or  questionable  statement. 
Ruskin  is  almost  the  only  living  writer,  except  Swinburne, 
to  whom  he  has  given  much  attention.  He  will  tell  you 
that  De  Quincey  is  tiresome,  gossiping,  and  at  times  abso- 
lutely foolish.  But  if  you  have  patience  to  examine  the 
reasons  which  he  gives  for  these  statements  you  will  find  that 
they  are  very  truthful.  Examine  Byron  carefully,  and  you 
will  find  that  there  is  scarcely  a  perfect  verse  in  the  whole  of 
his  work.  Balance  Ruskin's  judgment  carefully,  without 
suffering  yourself  to  be  blinded  by  the  dazzling  splendour  of 
his  language,  and  you  will  discover  that  his  value  is  not 
that  of  direct  truth,  but  only  of  suggestiveness.  Take  those 
pages  of  De  Quincey  severely  criticized,  and  forget  for  a 
moment  the  pages  that  can  not  be  criticized;  then  you  will 
learn  how  very  tiresome  and  worthless  some  of  De  Ouincey's 


94  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

work  really  is.  On  the  other  hand  you  will  obtain  from 
Saintsbury  a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  merits  of  the  same 
three  writers  than  any  other  English  critic  has  given  us. 
And  an  astonishing  fact  is  that  Saintsbury's  judgments  in 
French  literature  are  quite  as  sound  and  concise  as  his  judg- 
ments upon  English  literature.  He  is  the  best  guide  that 
I  know  of  in  both  literatures,  better  even  than  Professor 
Dowden.  And  I  do  not  know  that  he  has  exhibited  any 
idiosyncrasies  to  quarrel  with  in  the  whole  of  his  production, 
except  perhaps  his  obstinate  position  on  the  subject  of  the 
line  between  poetry  and  prose.  Although  he  has  praised, 
and  praised  highly,  certain  splendid  forms  of  poetical  prose, 
both  in  French  and  in  English  literature,  he  fights  for  the 
theory  that  poetical  prose  ought  not  to  be  written.  In  this 
respect  I  am  glad  to  say  that  Dowden  and  Gosse  do  not 
agree  with  him,  and  that  the  best  French  critics  do  not  agree 
with  him. 

I  should  like  you  to  approach  Saintsbury  always  with  this 
conviction  in  your  mind,  that  he  is  never  so  simple  as  he  ap- 
pears. You  must  not  try  to  read  him  quickly.  Everything 
he  says  deserves  to  be  thought  about,  and  there  is  a  great 
deal  more  in  his  sentences  than  you  can  imagine  when  you 
read  them  for  the  first  time.  Saintsbury's  books  are  books 
which  you  should  keep  in  your  libraries,  to  be  read  not  once 
only  but  many  times;  for  only  by  reading  them  over  and 
over  again  can  you  discover  the  great  power  that  is  in  them. 
Of  course  in  the  case  of  his  literary  histories,  it  is  of  no  use 
for  you  to  read  them  without  having  read  the  literature  de- 
scribed. But  whenever  you  have  learned  to  like  a  French 
or  an  English  writer,  turn  to  those  books  for  Saintsbury's 
estimate,  and  read  that  estimate  many  times.  Then  you 
will  learn  how  great  a  teacher  he  is. 

Although  influenced  by  Sainte-Beuve,  Saintsbury  has 
never  attempted  to  carry  out  Sainte-Beuve's  method  in  the 
direction  of  biography.  He  does  not  try  to  explain  a  man 
to  you  by  the  circumstances  of  that  man's  parentage,  life  or 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  95 

social  surroundings.  In  short,  he  never  theorizes  when  he 
can  help  it,  because  he  is  afraid  of  drawing  false  inferences. 
But  he  gives  you  biographical  facts,  and  he  leaves  you  to 
make  your  own  conclusions  from  them.  Perhaps  this  is  the 
safest  way,  and  it  has  one  great  merit — it  helps  to  make  the 
student  think  for  himself.  This  is  about  all  which  is  neces- 
sary to  say  in  regard  to  Professor  Saintsbury.  No  biog- 
raphy of  him  has  yet  been  published. 

It  is  quite  different  in  the  case  of  the  other  two  great 
critics.  We  have  plenty  of  biographical  material  concern- 
ing them,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  went  outside  of 
the  role  of  critics  and  scholars,  to  appear  as  poets  and  drama- 
tists, which  made  the  public  want  to  know  everything  about 
them.  Mr.  Saintsbury  does  not  write  poetry,  nor  do  any- 
thing outside  of  the  severe  limits  of  his  critical  pro- 
fession. But  the  productions  of  Professors  Dowden  and 
Gosse  have  been  of  an  extremely  varied  kind. 

Perhaps  Professor  Gosse  is  the  more  remarkable  of  the 
two;  and  I  imagine  that  he  is  certainly  the  greatest  writer 
of  the  three,  in  point  of  style.  He  is  also  very  much  the 
best  known  to  the  public  at  large.  His  career  has  been 
rather  curious.  He  is  the  son  of  the  naturalist,  Philip 
Gosse,  and  was  born  in  1849.  He  began  life  as  a  clerk  in 
the  library  of  the  British  Museum.  Then  he  became  trans- 
lator to  the  Board  of  Trade.  Later  still  his  extraordinary 
talents  attracted  attention,  with  the  result  that  he  was 
elected  lecturer  on  English  literature  at  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge.  Besides  those  histories  of  literature  of  which 
I  have  already  spoken,  he  has  produced  five  volumes  of 
poems,  five  volumes  of  essays,  and  two  volumes  of  literary 
biography — prodigious  work  for  a  man  still  comparatively 
young.  As  to  the  five  volumes  of  poems,  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  I  think  they  are  of  no  importance  at  all.  As  verse 
there  is  no  fault  to  be  found  with  them;  they  are  perfectly 
correct,  very  musical,  very  clever.  But  there  is  really 
nothing  new  in  them  and  nothing  very  strong.     It  is  quite 


96  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

different  in  regard  to  the  five  volumes  of  essays.  There  is 
much  more  poetry  in  the  prose  of  those  essays  than  in  the 
verses  of  the  other  volumes.  Indeed,  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  they  are  the  best  essays  written  by  any  living  Eng- 
lishman, and  I  think  that  there  is  no  essay-work  by  any 
other  writer  of  the  nineteenth  century  which  surpasses  them. 
Perhaps  they  have  never  been  equalled  in  English.  To  be 
still  more  definite  about  their  merit,  I  shall  say  that  these  es- 
says are  the  nearest  approach  ever  made  in  English  to  the 
elegance  and  grace  and  astonishing  colour  of  the  best  French 
essays.  In  other  words  Mr.  Gosse  writes  English  almost 
as  beautifully  as  the  best  of  French  writers  write  French. 
But  remember,  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  Mr.  Gosse  has 
studied  French  with  a  special  view  to  perfecting  his  own 
style.  Moreover,  he  has  adopted  the  method  of  Sainte- 
Beuve  in  the  fullest  manner  possible,  and  in  most  cases 
with  surprising  success.  He  studies  the  man,  the  writer, 
from  every  point  of  view,  in  relation  to  the  time,  in  rela- 
tion to  heredity,  in  relation  to  his  social  circumstances. 
And  he  has  extended  a  great  deal  of  generous  notice  to  liv- 
ing writers,  made  a  great  many  reputations,  and  endeared 
himself  to  literary  aspirants  all  over  Europe.  In  America 
he  is  very  much  loved,  and  he  gave  there  a  series  of  lectures 
which  have  been  very  popular,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
he  dared  to  say  that  America  had  never  produced  a  great 
poet,  and  perhaps  only  one  man  who  could  be  called  even  a 
good  poet  in  a  small  way. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  give  you  any  idea  of  the  splendour  of 
Mr.  Gosse's  English  by  extracts,  because,  in  any  of  his 
essays,  everything  is  so  woven  up  with  everything  else  that 
the  effect  of  any  part  really  belongs  to  the  whole ;  and  when 
you  detach  one  sentence  or  paragraph,  it  loses  much  of  the 
colour  and  beauty  which  it  displayed  when  united  to  the 
rest  of  the  living  texture.  But  I  shall  try  the  effect  of  a 
quotation  or  two.  Here  is  a  little  description  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  poet  Lord  de  Tabley,  which  as  a  description 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  97 

seems  to  me  to  teach  us  something  new  about  the  power 
of  the  English  language  when  managed  by  a  master-hand: 
"His  mind  was  like  a  jewel  with  innumerable  facets,  all 
slightly  blurred  or  misted; — or  perhaps  it  would  be  a  juster 
illustration  to  compare  his  character  to  an  opal,  where  all  the 
colours  lie  perdue,  drowned  in  a  milky  mystery,  and  so  ar- 
ranged that  to  a  couple  of  observers,  simultaneously  bend- 
ing over  it,  the  prevalent  hue  shall  in  one  case  seem  a  pale 
green,  in  the  other  a  fiery  crimson!" 

I  cannot  conceive  of  anything  finer  in  English  than  that. 
Of  course  the  idea  of  the  comparison  itself  has  a  natural 
splendour;  anybody  who  has  seen  an  opal,  and  who  knows 
how  to  write,  must  say  something  striking  about  it.  But 
even  when  Mr.  Gosse  talks,  not  about  jewels,  but  about 
the  most  common  and  vulgar  things,  his  style  is  equally 
splendid  and  equally  surprising.  I  give  you,  in  illustra- 
tion, two  little  paragraphs  taken  from  the  narrative  of  a 
visit  which  he  made  to  Whitman  some  eight  or  nine  years 
ago :  "Whitman,  in  his  suit  of  hodden  grey,  and  shirt  thrown 
wide  open  at  the  throat,  his  grey  hair  and  white  beard  vol- 
uminously flowing,  seemed  positively  blanched  with  cleanli- 
ness; the  whole  man  sand-white  with  spotlessness,  like  a 
deal-table  that  has  grown  old  under  the  scrubbing-brush. 
...  If  it  be  true  that  all  remarkable  human  beings  re- 
semble animals,  then  Walt  Whitman  was  like  a  cat,  a  great 
old  grey  Angora  Tom,  serenely  blinking  under  his  combed 
waves  of  hair,  with  eyes  inscrutably  dreaming." 

Perhaps  some  of  you  may  not  have  seen  an  Angora  cat. 
It  has  extraordinarily  long  silky  hair,  looking  like  a  pair 
of  whiskers  and  a  beard.  This  is  a  pen-picture  that  makes 
you  see  the  old  man  quite  as  plainly  as  the  writer  saw  him. 

The  volume  from  which  these  extracts  are  taken,  is  a 
volume  of  which  the  title,  Mr.  Gosse  tells  us,  may  be  spelled 
in  two  ways — "Critical  Kit-Cats,"  or  "Kit-Kats";  and  it  is 
in  this  volume  that  his  methods  and  his  style  most  resemble 
those  of  Sainte-Beuve.     But  another  volume  of  nearly  equal 


98  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

excellence  is  his  "Ouestions  at  Issue" ;  and  I  should  be  in- 
clined  to  accord  only  a  slightly  inferior  place  to  his  "Seven- 
teenth Century  Essays."  In  all  these  you  will  perceive  that 
he  has  an  astonishing  power  of  making  things  seem  alive. 
"Gossip  in  a  Library"  belongs  rather  to  the  severer  form  of 
the  literary  essay,  and  deals  chiefly  with  the  subject  of  curi- 
ous and  rare  books;  but  you  might  obtain  much  pleasure 
from  perusing  it,  even  if  the  actual  profit  should  prove  small. 
A  very  splendid  volume,  both  in  relation  to  style  and  in- 
struction, is  the  "Northern  Studies,"  in  which  Mr.  Gosse 
has  condensed  the  best  results  of  his  Scandinavian  scholar- 
ship. The  book  is  unfortunately  out  of  print  for  the 
moment;  but  I  believe  that  a  new  edition  is  being  prepared. 

I  have  not  anything  good  to  say  to  you  about  the  poetry 
of  this  great  critic;  but  I  must  tell  you  that  he  did  not  write 
it  with  the  idea  of  displaying  himself  as  a  great  poet;  it 
was  written  chiefly  to  exercise  himself  in  the  mastery  of 
certain  forms.  And  he  has  mastered  them  very  successfully 
indeed,  although  one  would  wish  rather  that  he  had  given 
the  time  to  another  volume  of  essays  on  literature.  In  my 
opinion  he  has  carried  the  form  of  the  essay  to  the  highest 
point  of  perfection  reached  in  the  English  language. 

Professor  Dowden  is  an  equally  remarkable  figure,  though 
differing  widely  from  the  other  two.  He  was  born  in  1843. 
He  must  have  had  most  extraordinary  ability  as  a  student, 
for  at  the  age  of  only  24  he  was  appointed  Professor  of  Eng- 
lish literature  in  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  He  is  still  in 
that  position;  but  he  is  also  a  lecturer,  occasionally,  at  Cam- 
bridge university,  at  Oxford  university,  and  at  Edinburgh 
University,  and  he  holds  high  degrees' from  those  three  uni- 
versities as  well  as  from  his  own.  He  was  first  made  widely 
known  by  his  "Life  of  Shelley," — the  same  Life  criticized 
by  Matthew  Arnold.  Later  on  he  became  widely  known 
as  a  student  of  Shakespeare.  He  has  also  produced  a  vol- 
ume of  poems  of  tolerable  excellence,  and  two  volumes  of 
literary  essays  of  very  great  excellence.     His  short  history 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  99 

of  French  literature  is  one  of  the  best  ever  made,  though  dif- 
fering entirely  in  character  from  Professor  Saintsbury's 
work  on  the  same  subject;  and  his  work  upon  modern  Eng- 
lish literature  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  any  to  read, 
although  it  is  very  much  condensed,  and  does  not  embrace 
nearly  so  many  subjects  as  the  work  of  Saintsbury. 

Professor  Dowden,  in  his  later  work  at  least,  shows  very 
strongly  the  influence  of  French  models.  He  also  is  a 
disciple  of  Sainte-Beuve,  though  less  successful  than  Mr. 
Gosse  in  imitating  some  of  Sainte-Beuve's  methods.  But 
the  study  of  the  French  masters  has  given  to  his  style  a  great 
deal  of  the  same  colour  and  power  observable  in  the  work 
of  Mr.  Gosse.  I  do  not  think  that  he  is  so  clever  as  Mr. 
Gosse  in  saying  a  great  deal  with  a  very  few  words.  He 
does  not  appear  to  have  Mr.  Gosse's  power  of  concentration; 
his  sentences  are  much  longer;  and  he  writes  much  more  dif- 
fusely. But,  this  being  said,  it  were  often  difficult  to  choose 
between  them.  Mr.  Dowden  has  the  poetical  temperament 
to  the  same  degree  that  Mr.  Gosse  has ;  and  in  point  of  style 
he  is  able  to  give  us  surprises  of  a  like  kind.  Open  his  last 
volume  of  literary  essays,  and  almost  in  the  very  beginning 
you  will  find  a  simile  like  this :  "Whither  is  literature  tend- 
ing?— The  science  of  spiritual  meteorology  has  not  yet  found 
its  Dalton  or  its  Humboldt;  the  law  of  the  tides  of  the  soul 
has  not  yet  been  expressed  in  a  formula." 

The  man  who  writes  this  way  we  feel  to  be  at  heart  both 
a  poet  and  a  thinker;  and  we  are  prepared  to  be  delighted  by 
him  even  when  he  touches  upon  metaphysical  law  or  philo- 
sophical subjects.  And  the  delight  comes  very  soon.  A 
little  further  on,  he  speaks  of  the  power  of  the  influence  of  a 
foreign  literature  to  inspire  our  own,  like  the  fusion  of 
strange  blood  that  gives  new  force  to  a  weak  or  perishing 
race :  "The  shock  of  strangeness  is  inspiriting.  Every  great 
literary  movement  of  modern  Europe  has  been  born  from 
the  wedlock  of  two  peoples.  So  the  great  Elizabethan  lit- 
erature sprang  from  the  love-making  of  England  with  Italy; 


100  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

the  poetry  of  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  from 
the  ardour  aroused  in  England  by  the  opening  promise  of  the 
French  Revolution." 

This  is  the  way  to  write  the  philosophy  of  literature,  so 
that  we  can  be  at  once  interested  and  taught,  at  once  amused 
and  instructed.  There  is  a  great  deal  in  that  little  sen- 
tence; for  it  expresses  a  universal  law,  ruling  the  history  not 
only  of  literature  but  of  life,  the  law  that  governs  not  only 
the  union  of  individuals,  but  the  union  also  of  intellectual 
elements.  It  reminds  us  also  of  the  teaching  of  Sir  Francis 
Galton,  that  men  of  genius  chiefly  come  from  families 
representing  the  union  of  different  national  elements.  And 
it  ought  to  interest  us  here,  this  law;  for  if  there  be  universal 
truth  in  it,  a  new  Japanese  literature  must  eventually  arise 
from  the  influence  of  Western  literature,  just  as  we  see  that, 
even  now  in  Europe,  the  influence  of  Oriental  literature, 
especially  from  India,  is  beginning  to  show  itself,  to  exercise 
a  new  power  in  Western  thought. 

Mr.  Dowden's  essays  are  rich  in  sentences  like  these;  and, 
as  you  might  have  divined  from  the  above  quotations,  he  has 
been  a  sincere  student  of  modern  science.  I  think  we  may 
call  him  a  strong  evolutionist.  He  is  the  only  one  of  the 
three  great  critics  who  has  boldly  declared  that  the  influence 
of  men  like  Herbert  Spencer  will  be  of  the  greatest  possible 
value  to  the  literature  of  the  coming  age.  It  has  been 
rather  the  fashion,  both  for  French  and  English  critics,  to 
declare  that  science  is  killing  poetry.  Mr.  Dowden  thinks 
the  exact  opposite.  He  believes  that  science  is  even  now 
putting  new  blood  and  strength  into  literature,  and  is  pre- 
paring the  way  for  grander  forms  both  of  prose  and  of  poe- 
try than  were  ever  known  before. 

In  this  and  in  other  ways  I  think  Professor  Dowden  is 
more  of  a  reformer,  more  broadminded,  and  more  generous 
than  either  Mr.  Gosse  or  Mr.  Saintsbury.  Mr.  Saintsbury 
would  certainly  not  hazard  any  strong  opinion  upon  the 
possible  influence  in  literature  of  the  evolutional  philosophy. 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  101 

Indeed,  when  he  has  spoken  of  it,  he  has  always  done  so  in 
the  most  cautious  manner,  and  in  the  tone  of  one  who  thinks 
that  nothing  has  yet  been  decided.  In  this  respect  he  well 
represents  English  conservatism.  Professor  Gosse  shows, 
through  all  his  writings,  that  he  is  as  much  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  new  philosophy  as  he  is  under  the  influence  of 
Sainte-Beuve.  But  Professor  Dowden,  greatest  by  his 
many  university  honours,  is  the  only  one  who  has  had  such 
sympathy  with  the  new  thought,  and  such  courage  to  ex- 
press that  sympathy,  as  to  give  us  a  thoughtful  and  splendid 
chapter  upon  the  subject.  He  might  also  do  much  more 
for  the  new  cause  in  literature,  were  it  not  that  his  time  is 
very  largely  taken  up  with  editing  as  well  as  with  lectur- 
ing. But  we  should  be  grateful  for  what  we  get,  in 
the  case  of  men  like  these. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  essay  I  spoke  of  Mr.  Stopford 
Brooke,  whom  you  all  know  of  through  his  excellent  primer 
of  English  literature.  You  know  that  a  good  primer  is 
very  much  harder  to  write  than  a  big  history ;  even  Huxley 
declared  that  it  was  the  hardest  thing  for  any  intellectual 
man  to  undertake.  The  great  point  in  a  primer  is,  not  so 
much  to  be  simple  and  clear,  but  to  choose.  There  must  be 
not  only  immense  compression,  but  amassing  of  only  the 
most  important  facts  bearing  upon  the  subject,  as  that  sub- 
ject ought  to  be  presented  to  young  minds.  And  that  little 
primer  of  literature  was  the  best  of  its  kind  ever  written; 
in  the  new  edition  it  has  increased  value  as  an  educational 
treasure.  The  man  capable  of  writing  it  was  not  an  or- 
dinary scholar  by  any  means,  but  a  very  extraordinary  one. 
Mr.  Brooke  was  known  as  a  clergyman  considerably  before 
he  became  known  in  literature;  he  was  famous  for  the  elo- 
quence and  beauty  of  his  sermons.  People  thought  it  an 
intellectual  treat  to  go  to  the  church  in  which  he  preached, 
just  for  the  pleasure  of  hearing  him.  In  his  leisure  moments 
he  gave  his  time  chiefly  to  the  subject  of  Anglo-Saxon  litera- 
ture, and  became  an  authority  upon  it — so  that  you  can  see 


(  .        r 

t      f      *     ,        t  I      ,  «  .    *  »        <      «     f     f      * 


102  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

he  is  a  many-sided  man.  But  I  do  not  think  that  he  can  be 
called  either  a  great  critic  or  a  great  stylist;  indeed,  he  has 
never  taken  the  special  pains  necessary  to  become  either. 
One  quotation  from  his  poetry  will  illustrate  what  I  mean, 
a  little  song,  showing  both  his  excellences  and  his  defects. 
It  is  taken  from  a  dramatic  composition  entitled  "Riquet 
of  the  Tuft." 

Young  Sir  Guyon  proudly  said, 

"Love  shall  never  be  my  fate." 
"None  can  say  so  but  the  dead !" 

Shrieked  the  witch-wife  at  his   gate. 

"Go  and  dare  my  shadowed  dell, 

Love  will  quell  your  happy  mood !" 

Guyon,  laughing  his  farewell, 
Rode  into  the  fairy  wood. 

There  he  met  a  maiden  wild; 

By  a  tree  she  stood  alone, 
When  she  looked  at  him  and  smiled, 

At  a  breath  his  heart  was  gone. 

In  her  arms  she  twined  him  fast, 

And,  like  wax  within  the  flame, 
Melted  memory  of  the  past, 

Soul  and  body,  name  and  fame! 

This  simple  little  ballad  is  quite  a  perfect  thing  thus  far 
— everything  that  a  weird  song  should  be.  But  the  last 
stanza  spoils  the  whole  composition : 

Late  at  night  the  steed  came  back; 

"Where's  our  good  knight1?"  cried  his  men. 
Far  and  wide  they  sought  his  track, 

But  Guyon  no  one  saw  again. 

Commonplace  phrasing,  doggerel-verse,  utter  indifference  to 
finish!  A  beautiful  little  composition  destroyed  by  haste 
and  indifference.     Now  there  is  something  of  the  same  haste 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  103 

observable  in  all  the  work  of  Mr.  Brooke,  except  in  perhaps 
that  wonderful  little  primer,  at  which  he  really  worked  very 
carefully,  and  had  the  assistance  or  advice  of  Matthew  Ar- 
nold and  other  eminent  men.  Everywhere  you  find  a  dis- 
play of  immense  natural  talent  and  great  scholarship,  but 
no  sustained  exquisiteness,  no  caution,  and  a  great  tendency 
to  twist  facts  so  as  to  adjust  them  to  fit  favourite  theories. 
No  few  of  these  theories,  about  Anglo-Saxon  literature,  for 
example,  have  been  proved  to  be  utterly  wrong;  and  they 
are  wrong  for  exactly  the  same  reason  that  the  little  song 
which  I  quoted  to  you  was  never  properly  finished.  Again 
we  find  incapacity  to  mass  and  arrange  facts  systematically. 
In  the  first  form  of  the  great  work  upon  Early  English  Lit- 
erature, the  student  is  utterly  confused  by  the  arbitrary  ar- 
rangement of  the  whole  thing,  by  tiresome  and  useless  di- 
gression, by  leaving  one  subject  half  finished  in  order  to 
consider  another,  and  then  returning  to  the  same  subject 
again  in  a  different  chapter.  In  the  subsequent  and  much 
condensed  form  of  the  work,  a  condensation  exacted  by  the 
good  judgment  of  the  publishers,  there  is  a  great  improve- 
ment; but  the  new  chapters  upon  Celtic  literature  and  the 
ancient  peoples  of  Britain,  together  with  the  chapters  upon 
King  Alfred,  show  the  same  faults  as  those  which  mark  and 
mar  the  whole  of  the  larger  work.  Therefore  it  would  be 
impossible  to  consider  Mr.  Brooke  as  a  trustworthy  critic, 
or  indeed  as  a  critic  at  all.  He  is  a  poet,  a  scholar,  a  dis- 
coverer, a  man  who  has  done  very  much  to  stimulate  the 
study  of  Anglo-Saxon  literature;  but  he  is  not  a  critic. 

There  are  of  course  quite  a  number  of  English  scholars 
who  are  occasional  critics  and  good  ones — specialists  like 
Professor  Kerr,  for  example.  But  these  men  are  first  of  all 
philologists,  and  not  professional  critics,  so  that  they  are  out- 
side of  our  present  consideration.  We  have  only  three  great 
professional  critics,  recognized  as  such,  to  offset  the  fifteen  or 
twenty  master  critics  that  France  can  boast  of.  And  what 
I  wanted  you  to  observe  from  the  beginning  of  this  lecture 


-     * 
*     » 


104  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

has  been  the  influence  of  French  literature  upon  these  three. 
They  have  been  made  by  the  study  of  French  criti- 
cism; they  have  developed  an  entirely  new  art 
through  the  study  of  French  criticism;  and  they  have 
done  more  than  any  other  men  to  turn  the  attention 
of  Englishmen  to  the  real  superiority  of  French  literature 
in  certain  departments.  Another  thing  which  they  have 
done,  and  a  very  important  thing  it  is,  has  been  to  create  a 
new  spirit  of  literary  tolerance  and  generosity.  Forty  or 
fifty  years  ago  English  men-of-letters  insisted,  like  Macau- 
lay,  on  judging  everything  foreign  from  an  English  stand- 
point— from  the  standpoint  of  English  ethics,  English  feel- 
ings, English  habits  and  customs;  and  the  result  was  nar- 
rowness and  dryness  of  soul.  Today  it  is  very  different. 
Mr.  Saintsbury,  conservative  in  many  things;  Mr.  Gosse, 
liberal  in  most  things;  and  Mr.  Dowden,  liberal  in  all  things 
— have  united  their  forces  to  teach  us  how  to  look  for  beauty 
in  itself,  apart  from  all  considerations  of  ethics  and  habits 
and  prejudices.  It  was  from  the  French  that  they  learned 
this,  the  excellent  teaching  lately  embodied  so  well  in  these 
little  sentences  of  Anatole  France,  "II  ne  faut  pas  demander 
la  verite  a  la  litterature  ;  il  faut  demander  la  verite  aux 
sciences"  That  is  to  say,  we  must  not  ask  truth  from  lit- 
erature, in  the  sense  of  exactness  of  fact;  such  exactness  it 
is  the  dut)'  of  science  to  give.  The  only  real  object  of  lit- 
erature is  beauty.  But  remember  that  beauty  in  itself  also 
means  truth  of  a  larger  kind  than  truth  of  fact;  it  means 
truth  of  feeling.  And  in  all  my  lectures  I  have  never  failed, 
when  I  had  the  opportunity,  to  remind  you  that  literature 
is  not  the  art  of  writing  books,  but  the  art  of  expressing 
feeling — feeling,  which  means  everything  noble  as  well  as 
everything  common  in  human  life.  Today  these  truths 
seem  plain  enough,  but  very  few  Englishmen  could  see  them 
fifty  years  ago.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  great  critics  to 
make  them  see  it. 

The  great  difference  between  French  and  other  criticism 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  105 

until  the  present  time  has  been  not  more  in  method  than  in 
charm.  A  good  French  review — a  review,  for  example,  by 
Jules  Lemaitre — delights  like  a  good  story,  while  it  instructs 
in  the  best  possible  way.  Not  infrequently  it  happens  that 
the  review  of  a  book  is  much  more  interesting  than  the  book 
itself.  On  the  other  hand,  German  criticism,  being  espe- 
cially scientific,  is  likely  to  be  somewhat  dry,  and  never  can 
appeal  to  an  equally  large  class  of  minds.  English  critics 
have  perceived  this  educational  value  in  the  French  method, 
and  it  is  noteworthy  that  such  a  critic  as  Mr.  Gosse,  who  has 
obtained  distinction  both  as  a  German  and  a  Scandinavian 
scholar,  never  allowed  himself  to  be  influenced  by  German 
methods  of  critical  analysis.  Now  the  literature  of  Eng- 
lish criticism  during  the  latter  part  of  the  present  century, 
has  been  made  almost  entirely  by  French  influence.  In 
what  other  directions  is  the  same  influence  to  be  seen1? 

In  the  beginning  I  said  that  I  was  going  to  speak  of  the 
general  relation  between  French  and  contemporary  English 
literature.     We  owe  to  French  influence  also  something  in 
poetry,  and  something  in  fiction,  but  not  so  much  as  might 
be  supposed.     In  poetry  the  French  of  today  had  little  to 
teach  Englishmen,   for  English  poetry  is  much  more  de- 
veloped than  English  prose.     There  are,  however,  marks  of 
the  great  French  romantic  poets  in  the  work  of  our  own  Vic- 
torian poets — in  Swinburne  a  great  deal,  in  Rossetti  a  little, 
in  Tennyson  scarcely  anything.     This  is  curious,  that  the 
poet  of  all  who  most  influenced  modern  English  is  the  one 
Englishman  who  had  least  to  learn  from  the  French.     The 
forms  of  which  English  poetry  is  capable  have  almost  been 
exhausted.     Therefore  the  influence  of  French  forms  could 
not  be  much.     What  could  be  borrowed  from  French  poetry 
would  be  feeling;  and  the  poets  who  have  borrowed  from 
the  French  have  been  those  who  allowed  certain  influences 
to  appear  in  their  poetry  not  in  accordance  with  real  English 
feeling.     Baudelaire  and  Gautier,  who  particularly  helped 
Swinburne  to  colour  his  verse,  were  poets  of  sensation — sen- 


106  MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM 

sation  of  a  kind  which  English  feeling  usually  rejects.  We 
may  say  that  the  influence  of  French  poetry  upon  English 
poetry  has  been  very  small  during  the  Victorian  poetry,  and 
has  been  chiefly  in  the  direction  of  increased  colour  and  sen- 
suous charm. 

As  for  the  novel,  the  French  do  not  appear  to  have  taught 
us  anything.  No  great  English  novelist  of  the  period  has 
successfully  attempted  to  write  upon  French  models.  Of 
course,  the  naturalistic  school,  the  school  of  Zola  and  the 
others,  had  its  message  for  English  novel  writers,  and  ex- 
periments were  made,  but  none  of  them  has  been  very  suc- 
cessful. If  we  can  speak  of  any  French  influence  in  this 
direction,  it  can  only  be  the  influence  of  theory — the  theory 
of  Realism.  Moreover,  it  is  remarkable  that  at  the  present 
time  literary  novels  have  almost  ceased  to  be  written  by 
Englishmen.  Take  any  French  novel,  noteworthy  or  not, 
and  you  will  find  that  it  is  beautifully  written;  the  style  is 
always  admirable.  But  although  fifteen  hundred  new 
books  are  promised  for  the  month  of  December — that  is, 
next  month — by  English  publishers,  I  doubt  whether  among 
them  all  will  be  one  beautifully  written  novel.  The  novel 
is  multiplying;  but  it  is  also  deteriorating.  It  would  indeed 
be  a  very  good  thing  if  English  writers  of  novels  could  be 
induced  to  imitate  the  workmanship  of  the  French.  The 
trouble  is — money.  Novel-writing  in  English  has  become 
a  money-making  business,  and  the  public  do  not  care  about 
style.  The  last  great  writer  of  novels  who  had  a  style  was 
Stevenson. 

In  another  direction,  however,  French  fiction  is  influen- 
cing English  fiction — the  direction  of  the  Short  Story.  You 
may  think  it  strange,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  until 
within  very  recent  times  the  English  reading  public  did  not 
care  for  English  short  stories,  and  English  publishers  would 
not  publish  them.  Yet  the  very  same  public  would  buy 
thousands  of  volumes  of  short  stories  in  French,  and  read 
them   with   delight.     Perhaps   it   was   thought   that   only 


MODERN  ENGLISH  CRITICISM  107 

Frenchmen  could  write  really  great  stories  of  this  kind. 
The  thought  was  altogether  wrong.  Perhaps  no  English 
writer  living  can  write  a  short  story  quite  as  well  as  a  French- 
man, except  Rudyard  Kipling.  But  there  is  now  a  grow- 
ing demand  for  short  stories,  and  many  clever  writers  are 
trying  to  imitate  the  French  in  this  way,  even  in  the  matter 
of  style.  But  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  the  change  was 
brought  about.  French  literature  directly  influenced,  not 
English  literature  in  this  matter,  but  American.  America 
first  yielded  to  this  influence;  the  work  of  Poe,  Hawthorne, 
and  later  Bret  Harte,  considerably  influenced  by  French 
writers,  at  last  yielded  fruit.  An  immense  number  of  books 
of  little  stories  were  produced  in  America  after  i860  or 
1870;  the  best  of  these  became  popular  in  England;  and 
then  came  the  short  stories  of  Stevenson  and  Kipling.  Be- 
fore that  some  English  writers,  like  Dickens  and  Lytton, 
wrote  wonderful  short  stories,  but  the  public  only  read  them 
because  they  were  already  familiar  with  the  novels  of  the 
same  authors.  I  remember  a  most  beautiful  little  story 
called  "A  Bird  of  Passage"  by  J.  Sheridan  Le  Fanu,  pub- 
lished in  England  early  in  the  seventies;  it  was  ignored  in 
England,  but  the  American  public  were  delighted  with  it. 
Now  we  can  fairly  state  that  the  English  prejudice  in 
favour  of  the  novel,  as  against  the  short  story,  is  breaking 
down,  and  that  this  again  is  due  to  French  influence. 

Thus  we  have  evidence  of  French  influence  in  criticism, 
a  little  in  poetry,  and  a  little  in  fiction.  But  in  other  de- 
partments of  literature  the  English  remain  very  much  be- 
hind their  neighbours.  In  the  drama  the  French  remain 
incomparably  superior.  Indeed,  French  plays  are  con- 
stantly being  translated  for  English  theatres;  while  no  great 
English  drama,  of  an  actable  kind,  has  appeared  during  the 
period.  And  there  is  yet  another  department  of  literature 
in  which  the  French  have  much  to  teach  the  English — the 
Sketch,  the  essay  of  observation.  In  that  we  are  still  im- 
measurably behind. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  spite  of  what  is  called  the 
"tyranny  of  fiction"  the  novel  is  slowly  dying,  and  changing 
shape.  There  will  be  some  new  form  of  novel  developed, 
no  doubt,  but  it  must  be  something  totally  different  from 
the  fiction  which  has  been  tyrannizing  over  literature  for 
nearly  a  hundred  years.  Also  poetry  is  changing;  and  the 
change  is  marked  here,  much  more  than  it  is  in  fiction,  by  a 
period  of  comparative  silence. 

Our  business  today  is  chiefly  with  prose ;  but  some  of  the 
remarks  which  I  shall  have  to  make  will  also  apply  to  poetry. 
A  branch  of  literature  dies  only  when  the  subject  has 
been  exhausted — at  least  this  is  the  rule  under  natural  con- 
ditions. What  subjects  have  been  exhausted  in  English 
literature  to  such  a  degree  that  further  treatment  of  them  has 
become  impossible,  or  seemingly  impossible?  It  is  an  in- 
teresting question,  and  will  repay  attention. 

First  of  all  we  should  remember  that  literature  has  its 
fashions,  like  everything  else.  Some  fashions  live  but  for 
a  season,  just  like  some  particular  fashion  in  dress.  But 
there  are  other  fashions  or  habits  which  last  for  very  long 
periods, — just  as  the  custom  of  wearing  silk  or  wool,  irre- 
spective of  the  shape  of  the  garments,  may  last  for  hundreds 
of  years  or  even  longer.  We  are  apt,  on  account  of  the 
length  of  time  during  which  certain  literary  customs  last,  to 
imagine  them  much  more  natural  and  indispensable  than 
they  really  are.  The  changes  now  likely  to  take  place  in 
English  literature  are  not  changes  in  the  form  of  the  gar- 
ment, so  much  as  changes  in  the  material  of  which  the  gar- 
ment is  to  be  made.  But  so  long  has  this  material  been  used 
that  many  of  us  have  been  accustomed  to  think  of  the  sub- 

108 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  109 

stance  as  literature  itself,  and  as  indispensable  to  literary 
creation. 

To  illustrate  better*  what  I  mean  let  me  ask  you  to  think 
for  a  moment  about  what  has  most  strongly  impressed  you 
as  making  a  great  difference  between  Western  literatures 
generally  and  your  own.  You  will  understand  at  once  that 
I  am  not  speaking  of  form.  When  you  read  English  poetry 
or  fiction,  French  poetry  or  fiction,  German  poetry  or  fic- 
tion, and  I  might  say  drama  as  well,  the  impression  you  re- 
ceive has  a  certain  strangeness,  a  certain  tone  in  it  particu- 
larly foreign;  and  in  every  case  or  nearly  every  case  this  tone 
is  about  the  same.  Am  I  not  right  in  suggesting  that  the 
sense  of  strangeness  which  you  receive  from  foreign  litera- 
ture is  particularly  owing  to  the  way  in  which  the  subject  of 
sex-relations  is  treated  in  all  literature  of  the  West4?  Love 
has  been  the  dominant  subject  throughout  Western  litera- 
ture for  hundreds  of  years,  and  that  is  why  I  think  you  feel 
that  literature  especially  foreign  to  your  own  habits  of  think- 
ing and  feeling. 

But  the  very  fact  that  you  do  so  find  this  difference,  ought 
to  have  suggested  to  you  that,  after  all,  there  must  be  some- 
thing unnatural,  artificial,  in  this  passionate  element  of 
Western  verse.  Human  character  and  human  feeling  are 
not  essentially  different  on  opposite  sides  of  the  world.  The 
fundamental  sentiments  of  society  are  everywhere  pretty 
nearly  the  same,  because  they  are  based  upon  very  nearly 
the  same  kinds  of  moral  and  social  experience.  If  the  de- 
scendant of  one  civilization  finds  something  extremely  dif- 
ferent in  the  thinking  and  acting  of  the  descendant  of  an- 
other civilization,  he  has  a  right  to  suppose  that  the  differ- 
ence is  really  a  difference  of  custom.  And  customs  must 
change  just  like  fashions. 

Fifty  years  ago — no,  even  twenty-five  years  ago — it 
would  have  been  considered  almost  absurd  to  say  that  the 
subject  of  love  in  European  literature  was  only  a  passing 
thing,  a  fashion,  a  custom  assuredly  destined  to  give  place 


110  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

to  some  other  kind  of  material.  Scholars  and  sociologists 
would  have  cried  out  in  astonishment,  and  talked  about  the 
literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome,  as  testifying  to  the  con- 
trary. Even  now  there  are  many  people  who  imagine  that 
love  must  be  eternally  the  theme  of  literature.  But  the 
greater  thinkers,  the  men  of  today  who  can  see,  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  declare  that  it  is  passing  away.  It  was  only  a  very, 
very  old  fashion. 

Indeed,  if  you  think  about  the  history  of  English  litera- 
ture as  it  is  now  understood — and  that  is  to  say,  about  the 
history  of  European  literature  in  general — you  will  find  that 
the  subject  of  love  has  not  always  been  the  dominant  note, 
by  any  means.  The  earliest  literature  had  very  little  to 
do  with  the  subject  at  all;  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  and 
prose,  for  example,  dealt  chiefly  with  heroic  and  sacred  sub- 
jects. The  Anglo-Norman  literature  touched  the  matter 
very  sparingly  indeed;  and  the  great  epic  of  the  French 
conquerors,  the  Song  of  Roland,  is  remarkable  for  the  fact 
that  there  are  scarcely  five  lines  in  it  with  regard  to  the  fair 
sex.  But  one  incident  of  a  tender  character  is  mentioned — 
the  death  of  the  betrothed  of  Roland  when  she  hears  of  the 
hero's  fate.  It  was  not  until  the  time  of  the  mediaeval 
romances  that  the  subject  of  love  began  to  blossom  and 
grow  in  European  literature — so  that,  after  all,  the  fashion 
is  only  some  hundreds  of  years  old.  When  the  erotic  litera- 
ture began  in  earnest  with  the  great  singing  period  of  Eliza- 
beth, the  inspiration  was  chiefly  taken  from  the  Latin  and 
the  Greek  poets ;  it  was  not  of  the  modern  races  at  all,  but 
was  a  renaissance  from  the  past.  What  we  call  the  Renais- 
sance feeling  accounted  very  much  for  the  erotic  literature 
between  the  Elizabethan  period  and  the  Classical  period — 
the  eighteenth  century  "Augustine  Age,"  when  the  subject 
was  considerably  chilled  in  treatment  by  a  new  sense  of  the 
importance  of  restraint.  But  this  tendency  to  restraint  soon 
yielded  before  the  charm  of  the  freshly  invented  novel,  and 
from  the  days  of  Richardson  to  our  own,  the  dominant  sub- 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  111 

ject  in  English  literature  again  became  love.  You  see  that 
throughout  the  past  it  was  not  always  the  dominant  note 
by  any  means.  It  was  a  fashion — and  it  is  now  passing 
away. 

,  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  subject  is  entirely  exhausted,  all 
through  Europe.  Such  branches  of  erotic  literature  as  could 
not  be  exhausted  in  England,  owing  to  the  particular  char- 
acter of  the  race,  have  been  entirely  exhausted  in  France,  in 
Itaty,  and  elsewhere.  The  world  has  become  tired  of  love- 
stories  and  tired  of  love-poetry.  The  story-tellers  and  the 
poets  of  the  future  will  have  to  find  other  and  higher  sub- 
jects. 

But  what  subjects?  Almost  every  subject  has  been  ex- 
hausted in  fiction.  No  mortal  man  could  now  invent  a 
new  plot,  or  tell  a  story  that  has  not  been  told  before.  It 
is  true  that  every  year  hundreds  of  novels  are  published, 
but  all  of  them  are  but  repetitions  of  what  has  been  told  be- 
fore. The  only  thing  that  the  writer  now  can  do  is  to  make 
recombinations  with  old  material;  and  even  the  possibility 
of  such  combinations  has  now  become  almost  exhausted. 

The  men  most  competent  to  make  a  prediction  do  not 
seem  to  be  inclined  to  predict  what  is  going  to  happen.  Pro- 
fessor Saintsbury  frankly  says  he  does  not  know,  but  he  has 
faith  in  the  genius  of  the  English  race  and  language  to  pro- 
duce something  new.  Professor  Dowden  also  says  that  he 
does  not  know,  but  he  thinks  there  is  going  to  be  a  new 
literature  and  that  philosophy  will  have  much  to  do  with  it. 
Professor  Gosse  is  the  only  one  who  speaks  out  boldly.  He 
thinks  that  the  novel  will  become  impossible  except  by  the 
method  of  Zola,  which  consists  in  describing  within  a  single 
volume  some  whole  branch  of  industry,  art  or  commerce. 
But  the  method  of  Zola  could  be  adopted  only  by  some  man 
of  extraordinary  working  strength,  as  well  as  genius,  and 
even  such  subjects  as  Zola's  method  deals  with  must  even- 
tually become  exhausted.  There  is  the  psychological  novel ; 
but  the  example  of  George  Meredith  has  shown  that  it  has 


11&  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

no  chance  of  ever  becoming  popular.  Fiction  in  the  old 
sense  is  probably  doomed,  or  will  be  restricted  to  the  short 
story.  As  for  poetry,  that  will  leave  the  subject  of  love 
almost  alone,  and  will  chiefly  interest  itself  with  the  higher 
emotional  life.  In  other  words,  we  are  to  have  a  new  psy- 
chological poetry.  These  views  of  Mr.  Gosse  are  very  in- 
teresting, but  I  can  not  take  the  time  to  talk  about  his  argu- 
ments in  favour  of  them.  I  am  only  anxious  that  you 
should  recognize  the  opinion  of  the  great  critics  in  regard 
to  this  probability — first, -that  love  will  not  be  the  subject  of 
the  future  prose  or  the  future  poetry,  and  secondly,  that  the 
higher  emotional  life  will  almost  certainly  take  the  place 
formerly  given  to  the  passional  life. 

It  may  seem  like  the  waste  of  a  great  many  words  to  tell 
all  this  about  what  is  still  supposititious.  But  if  any  of 
you  hope  to  make  literature  your  profession,  it  is  above  all 
things  necessary  that  you  should  be  prepared  to  follow  the 
tendency  of  the  age.  Any  man  of  letters  who  strives 
against  the  natural  current  of  change  will  almost  certainly 
be  wrecked  in  consequence.  Any  book  produced,  no  mat- 
ter how  well  written,  which  can  be  classed  with  the  produc- 
tions of  a  dead  school  by  its  thought  and  feeling,  will  soon 
be  forgotten.  Moreover,  in  your  private  reading  it  is  very, 
very  essential  to  read  in  modern  directions.  Indeed,  among 
many  great  educators  of  today  it  is  a  matter  for  regret  that 
so  much  attention  is  given  exclusively  to  the  literature  of 
past  centuries,  because  that  literature  in  sentiment  and  imag- 
ination is  foreign  to  our  own  time,  notwithstanding  the 
beauty  of  its  expression. 

In  future  prose,  two  fields  are  certainly  sure  to  find  much 
cultivation — the  field  of  the  essay,  and  the  field  of  the 
sketch.  You  are  aware  that  during  the  nineteenth  century 
the  essay  and  the  sketch  have  been  much  less  cultivated  in 
England  than  in  France;  and  the  reason  is  that  writers  of 
essays  and  sketches  could  not  possibly  compete  with  the 
writers  of  novels.     The  novel  practically  crushed  the  essay. 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  113 

It  was  as  if  an  immense  mass  of  rocks  had  been  thrown  down 
upon  a  grassy  field;  in  order  that  the  grass  and  flowers  could 
bloom  again,  it  was  necessary  that  the  pressure  should  be 
removed.  And  it  is  likely  to  be  removed  very  soon.  The 
more  speedily  the  novel  decays,  the  more  the  essay  and  the 
sketch  will  come  again  into  blossom  and  favour.  Slight  as 
such  literature  may  seem  to  the  superficial  eye,  it  is  really 
far  more  durable  and  much  more  valuable  than  fiction,  in 
the  majority  of  cases.  A  single  fine  essay  may  live  for  thou- 
sands of  years — witness  the  little  essays  by  Cicero,  now 
translated  into  all  languages,  and  studied  everywhere  for 
their  beauty  of  expression  and  thought. 

As  for  the  sketch,  I  think  it  has  a  very  great  future ;  even 
now  it  is  able  to  struggle  a  little  against  a  novel.  By  the 
word  sketch  I  mean  any  brief  study  in  prose  which  is  either 
an  actual  picture  of  life  as  seen  with  the  eyes,  or  of  life  as 
felt  with  the  mind.  You  know  that  the  word  strictly  means 
a  picture  lightly  and  quickly  drawn.  A  sketch  may  be  a 
little  story,  providing  it  keeps  within  the  world  of  fact  and 
sincere  feeling.  It  may  take  the  form  of  a  dialogue  be- 
tween two  persons,  providing  that  the  conversation  recorded 
makes  for  us  a  complete  dramatic  impression.  It  might  be 
a  prose-monologue,  inspired  by  the  experience  of  some  coun- 
try or  town.  It  might  be  only  a  record  of  something  seen, 
but  so  well  seen  that,  when  recorded,  it  is  like  a  water-colour. 
In  short,  the  sketch  may  take  a  hundred  forms,  a  thousand 
forms,  and  it  offers  the  widest  possible  range  for  the  ex- 
pression of  every  literary  faculty.  You  may  exercise  your 
utmost  power  in  reflection,  in  description,  or  in  emotional 
expression,  within  the  limits  of  the  sketch.  Of  course  the 
sketch  ought  to  be  short ;  but  the  charm  of  the  form  is  that 
there  is  no  rule  about  how  short.  You  may  make  a  sketch 
of  only  fifty  lines,  or  you  can  make  a  sketch  ten  or  twelve 
pages  long.  I  do  not  think  that  a  purely  literary  sketch 
ought  to  represent  in  print  more  than  from  ten  to  sixteen 
pages.     But  there  is  no  rule. 


114  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

There  is  something  more  to  say  about  the  importance  to 
you  of  studying  this  branch  of  literature,  of  exercising  your- 
self in  the  production  of  it.  Remember  that  we  are  living 
in  a  very  busy  age,  in  which  the  opportunity  for  leisurely 
literary  work  can  come  to  but  few.  No  matter  how  rich 
a  man  may  be,  the  new  exigencies  of  social  existence  will  not 
allow  him  to  enjoy  the  patient  dreamy  life  of  the  past.  In 
a  century  full  of  hurry,  where  every  man  is  expected  to  do 
more  than  three  men  would  have  been  asked  to  do  some  fifty 
years  ago,  it  is  much  more  easy  and  profitable  to  attempt 
brief  forms  of  literature  than  long  ones.  Neither  will  the 
writers  of  a  future  generation  have  any  reason  to  fear  the 
competition  between  short  and  lengthy  works  of  literary  art, 
for  the  great  public,  no  less  than  the  literary  classes,  will 
certainly  become  tired  of  lengthy  productions;  their  pref- 
erence will  be  given  to  works  of  small  compass  which  can 
be  read  in  intervals  of  leisure. 

I  have  said  so  much  about  the  sketch  for  two  reasons. 
One  is  that,  unlike  the  essay,  its  value  does  not  necessarily 
depend  upon  scholarship  or  philosophical  capacity.  The 
other  reason  is  that  it  happens  to  be  one  of  those  few  forms 
of  literature  in  which  Japan  can  hold  her  own  with  West- 
ern countries.  Judged  by  recent  translations,  the  old  Jap- 
anese sketch,  as  I  should  call  it,  might  be  very  favourably 
compared  with  the  same  class  of  work  in  England  and 
France,  and  not  suffer  much  by  comparison.  And  yet  the 
Japanese  language,  the  written  language,  was  at  that  time 
far  inferior  to  Western  languages  as  a  medium  of  expression. 
The  fact  is  that  the  literature  of  the  sketch  depends  for  its 
merit  a  great  deal  upon  what  has  nothing  to  do  with  ornate 
style;  it  depends  upon  good  thinking  and  sincere  feeling. 
Critics  have  said  that  neither  Japanese  drama  nor  Japanese 
fiction  can  compare  with  Western  fiction  and  drama. 
Whether  they  are  right  or  wrong  I  leave  you  to  judge.  But 
if  any  critic  should  say  that  the  Japanese  sketch  cannot 
compare  with  the  same  kind  of  literature  abroad,  he  would 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  115 

prove  himself  incompetent.  This  kind  of  literature  seems 
to  be  exactly  suited  to  the  genius  of  the  language  as  well  as 
to  the  genius  of  the  national  character;  and  in  an  age  when 
the  sketch  is  again  likely  to  make  for  itself  a  great  place 
in  European  literature,  it  would  be  well  to  give  all  possible 
attention  to  its  cultivation  in  Japanese  literature. 

Of  course  I  need  not  further  insist  upon  the  difference  be- 
tween the  sketch — which  always  should  be  something  of  a 
picture — and  the  essay,  which  requires  exact  scholarship 
and  is  rather  an  argument  or  analysis  than  anything  else. 
But  since  a  sketch  may  at  times  be  narrative,  it  is  quite  nec- 
essary that  you  should  be  able  to  distinguish  between  a 
sketch  and  an  anecdote,  which  is  also  narrative.  The  anec- 
dote proper  is  simply  the  record  of  an  incident,  without  any 
emotional  or  artistic  detail.  This  kind  of  composition  lends 
itself  to  humour,  especially,  and  therefore  we  find  that  a 
great  proportion  of  what  we  call  anecdotes  in  English  lit- 
erature are  of  the  humorous  kind.  It  does  not  require  any 
psychological  art  or  descriptive  power  to  tell  a  short  funny 
story.  Such  a  story  ordinarily  is  not  a  sketch.  But  in  those 
rare  cases  where  a  humorous  story  is  told  from  the  psycho- 
logical point  of  view,  so  as  to  make  the  reader  share  all  the 
emotions  of  the  experience,  then  the  narrative  of  incident 
may  rise  to  the  dignity  of  the  sketch.  A  good  example  is 
furnished  by  the  late  English  poet,  Frederick  Locker,  whose 
prose  is  scarcely  less  delicate  than  his  verse,  and  very  much 
the  same  in  tone.  He  has  told  us  about  a  little  experience 
of  his,  which  we  must  call  a  sketch  because  it  is  very  much 
more  than  an  anecdote.  It  is  simply  his  own  account  of  a 
blunder  which  he  made  in  the  house  of  an  aristocratic  friend, 
by  upsetting  a  bottle  of  ink  upon  a  magnificent  carpet.  You 
see  the  happening  is  nothing  at  all  in  itself;  but  the  way  in 
which  it  is  told,  the  way  in  which  the  feelings  of  the  writer 
are  conveyed  to  the  reader,  is  admirable.  I  can  not  quote  it 
all,  nor  would  you  readily  understand  some  of  the  allusions 
to  English  customs.     But  a  few  extracts  will  show  you 


116  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

what  I  mean.  He  first  describes  his  reception  at  the  house 
of  his  friends,  by  the  maid  servant ;  for  the  friends  were  not 
at  home.     He  introduces  us  to  the  servant : 

"This  handsome  maid  was  past  her  giddy  youth,  but  had 
not  nearly  arrived  at  middle  age.  Some  people  might  have 
called  her  comely,  and  some  attractive;  I  found  her  any- 
thing but  cordial — in  fact,  she  had  a  slightly  chilling  man- 
ner, as  if  she  was  not  immensely  pleased  to  see  me,  and 
would  not  break  her  heart  if  she  never  saw  me  again.  How- 
ever, in  I  walked  and  was  taken  to  the  drawing  room." 

This  is  only  light  fun;  but  we  understand  from  it  exactly 
the  somewhat  hard  character  of  the  girl  and  the  uncomfort- 
able feelings  of  the  visitor.  The  author  goes  on  to  describe 
the  room  in  a  few  bright  sentences,  each  of  which  is  a  sug- 
gestive drawing.  The  visitor  decides  then  to  pass  his  wait- 
ing time  in  writing  some  poetry;  and  he  looks  for  an  ink- 
stand. At  last  he  finds  one — an  immense  glass  inkstand — 
of  which  he  draws  a  picture  for  us.  As  he  tries  to  lift  up 
the  inkstand  by  the  top,  the  upper  part  breaks  away  from 
the  lower  part,  and  over  the  magnificent  carpet  pours  the 
ink.  And  now  the  visitor,  author  of  this  awful  mischief, 
finds  himself  obliged  to  be  very,  very  humble  to  that  servant 
girl  whom  at  first  he  spoke  of  so  scornfully : 

"Can  you  conceive  my  feelings'?  I  spun  around  the  room 
in  an  agony.  I  tore  at  the  bell,  then  at  the  other  bell,  then 
at  both  the  bells — then  I  dashed  into  the  library  and  rang 
the  bells  there,  and  then  back  again  to  the  drawing  room. 
The  maid  who  had  admitted  me  came  up  almost  immedi- 
ately looking  as  calm  as  possible,  and  when  she  saw  the  mis- 
chief, she  seemed  all  at  once  to  rise  to  the  gravity  of  the  oc- 
casion. She  did  not  say  a  word — she  did  not  even  look  dis- 
mayed, but,  in  answer  to  my  frenzied  appeal,  she  smiled  and 
vanished.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  however,  she  was 
back  again  with  hot  water,  soap,  sponge,  etc.,  and  was  soon 
mopping  the  copious  stain  with  a  damp  flannel,  kneeling 
and  looking  beautiful  as  she  knelt. 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  117 

"Then  did  I  throw  myself  into  a  chair  exhausted  with 
excitement,  and  I  may  say  agony  of  mind,  and  I  exclaimed 
to  myself,  'Good  Heavens,  if  the  blessed  creature  does  really 
help  me  in  this  frightful  emergency,  I  will  give  her  a  sov- 
ereign. It  will  be  cheap  at  a  sovereign;  yes,  she  shall  have 
twenty  shillings.'  " 

How  well  this  is  all  told — the  sudden  respect  which  the 
visitor  feels,  in  the  moment  of  his  humiliation,  for  the 
somewhat  hard  girl  who  alone  can  help  him.  And  the  first 
impulse  which  he  has  is  of  course  to  make  her  a  handsome 
present.  One  pound,  or  ten  yen,  is  a  big  present  for  a 
servant  girl.  But  we  are  only  at  the  beginning  of  the  psy- 
chological part  of  the  story.  As  the  girl  sponges,  gradually 
the  stains  upon  the  carpet  disappear.  It  is  a  labour  of 
twenty  minutes,  but  it  is  successful.  At  last  the  stains  en- 
tirely disappear,  and  the  poet  says  that  his  "guardian  angel" 
rose  to  her  feet,  and  asks  him  with  a  quiet  smile,  as  if  it 
were  all  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  "if  I  should 
have  a  cup  of  tea."  So  the  agony  is  over.  But  the  grati- 
tude is  not  now  quite  so  strong  as  at  first.  He  now  thinks 
that  he  must  certainly  give  her  fifteen  shillings. 

Presently  his  friends  come  back;  and  of  course  they  tell 
him  how  terribly  particular  they  are  about  their  carpet. 
And  he  describes  all  the  agitation  which  their  remarks  pro- 
duce in  his  mind,  with  admirable  humour.  But  the  end 
of  the  story  is  this — 

"I  forgot  to  say  that  I  presented  my  'guardian-angel'  with 
the  sum  of  five  shillings.  And  this  is  the  end  of  a  true 
story." 

There  is  a  fine  little  study  of  human  nature  here ;  and  this 
study  is  what  raises  the  narrative  far  above  anecdote.  The 
truth  to  actual  life  of  the  feelings  described  is  unimpeach- 
able. Probably  every  one  of  us  has  had  the  same  waxing 
and  waning  of  generous  impulse — gratitude  first  im- 
pelling us  to  be  too  kind,  and  reason  and  selfishness  combin- 
ing later  on  to  reduce  the  promised  reward. 


118  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

There  is  a  comic  sketch  for  you;  it  is  trifling,  of  course, 
because  the  humorous  side  of  things  must  always  be  trifling. 
But  a  trifling  subject  does  not  necessarily  mean  a  trifling 
sketch.  A  philosopher  can  write  about  a  broomstick,  and  a 
really  artistic  sketch-writer  can  deal  with  almost  any  sub- 
ject. One  of  the  best  sketch  writers,  though  not  the  best 
of  modern  times  was  the  great  French  novelist,  Alphonse 
Daudet.  Daudet  is  chiefly  known  through  his  novels;  but 
that  is  only  because  it  requires  more  than  popular  taste  to 
appreciate  his  delightful  little  sketches.  Now,  talking 
about  trifling  subjects,  what  do  you  think  of  eating  as  a  sub- 
ject*? Surely  that  is  trifling  enough.  But  a  number  of 
Daudet's  sketches  are  all  about  eating;  he  made  a  series  of 
them,  each  describing  the  memory  relating  to  some  one 
national  dish  eaten  in  a  foreign  country.  I  may  attempt  to 
indicate  the  character  of  the  set,  by  roughly  translating  to 
you  the  sketch  entitled  "La  Bouillabaisse,"  the  name  of  a 
famous  dish  about  which  the  English  poet  Thackeray  wrote 
a  very  beautiful  meditative  poem.  Here  is  an  illustration 
of  how  two  great  artistic  minds,  though  very  differently  con- 
stituted, can  alike  find  inspiration  in  small  and  common- 
place things. 

"We  were  sailing  along  the  Sardinian  coast.  It  was  early 
morning.  The  rowers  were  rowing  very  slowly;  and  I, 
leaning  over  the  edge  of  the  boat,  looked  down  into  the  sea, 
which  was  as  transparent  as  a  mountain  spring,  and  illum- 
inated by  the  sun  even  to  the  very  bottom.  Jelly-fish  and 
star-fish  were  visible  among  the  weeds  below.  Immense 
lobsters  were  resting  there  motionless  as  if  asleep,  with  their 
long  horns  resting  upon  the  fine  sand.  And  all  this  was  to 
be  seen  at  a  depth  of  eighteen  or  twenty  feet,  in  a  queer  ar- 
tificial way  that  made  one  think  of  looking  into  a  great 
aquarium  of  crystal.  At  the  prow  of  the  boat  a  fisherman, 
standing  erect,  with  a  long  split  reed  in  hand,  suddenly  made 
a  sign  to  the  rowers — piano,  piano  I  (go  softly — softly) — 
and  suddenly  between  the  points  of  his  fishing-trident  he 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  119 

displayed  suspended  a  beautiful  lobster,  stretching  out  his 
claws  in  a  fit  of  terror  which  showed  that  he  was  still  im- 
perfectly awakened.  Beside  me  another  boatman  kept 
throwing  his  line  on  the  surface  of  the  water,  in  the  wake  of 
the  boat,  and  continually  brought  up  marvellous  little  fishes, 
which,  in  dying,  took  a  thousand  different  shapes  of  chang- 
ing colour.     It  was  like  an  agony  looked  at  through  a  prism. 

"The  fishing  was  over;  we  went  on  shore  and  climbed 
amongst  the  great  high  grey  rocks.  Quickly  a  fire  was 
lighted — a  fire  that  looked  so  pale  in  the  great  light  of  the 
sun ! — large  slices  of  bread  were  cut  and  heaped  upon  little 
plates  of  red  earthenware;  and  there  we  took  our  places, 
seated,  around  the  cooking  pot,  each  with  his  plate'  held  in 
readiness,  inhaling  with  delight  the  odour  of  the  cooking.  . . . 
And  was  it  the  landscape — or  the  earth — or  that  great  hori- 
zon of  sky  and  water?  I  do  not  know,  but  I  never  in  my 
life  ate  anything  better  than  that  lobster  Bouillabaisse, 
and  afterwards  what  a  delightful  siesta  we  had  upon  the 
sand! — our  sleep  still  full  of  the  rocking  sensation  of  the 
sea,  whose  myriad  little  scale-flashings  of  light  still  seemed 
to  be  palpitating  before  our  eyes." 

That  is  all,  but  it  tells  you  all  the  feelings  of  one  happy 
day,  and  the  incidents,  and  the  things  heard  and  smelled 
and  seen;  and  you  can  not  forget.  That  is  the  sketch  in 
the  very  best  meaning  of  the  word.  How  short  it  is,  and 
how  bright.  And  Daudet  has  written  a  great  many 
sketches.  Perhaps  you  do  not  know  that  one  of  them,  or  a 
series  of  them,  treat  of  Japanese  subjects.  In  Paris  Daudet 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Philipp  Franz  von  Siebold,  whose 
name  is  well  known  as  a  scientific  explorer  of  Japan.  Sie- 
bold was  then  trying  to  interest  Napoleon  III  in  the  project 
of  a  great  European  commercial  company,  to  be  organized 
for  the  purpose  of  trading  with  Japan.  Daudet  was  very 
much  interested  by  Siebold,  not  in  the  commercial  com- 
pany which  he  was  attempting  to  form,  but  in  Japanese 
literature  and  art,  of  which  scarcely  anything  was  then 


120  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

known.  Siebold  especially  delighted  Daudet  by  stories 
of  the  Japanese  theatre.  "I  will  give  you,"  he  said  to 
Daudet,  "a  beautiful  Japanese  tragedy,  called  The  Blind 
Emperor' ;  we  shall  translate  it  together,  and  you  will  pub- 
lish it  in  French,  and  everybody  will  be  delighted."  Dau- 
det wanted  very  much  to  do  so.  But  at  that  time  Siebold 
was  seventy-two  years  of  age,  his  memory  a  little  weak,  and 
his  energies  rapidly  failing.  He  kept  putting  off  the  ful- 
filment of  his  promise,  up  to  the  time  when  he  left  Paris 
forever;  and  Daudet  actually  went  to  Germany  after  him, 
in  order  to  get  that  Japanese  tragedy.  He  found  Siebold; 
and  Siebold  had  the  tragedy  all  ready,  he  said,  to  give  him 
— but  he  died  only  the  night  after.  So  Daudet  never  got 
the  tragedy.  I  wonder  if  there  is  any  tragedy  of  that  name. 
But  I  was  going  to  tell  you  that  Daudet  told  his  Siebold 
experiences  in  a  series  of  delicious  little  sketches  whose 
value  happens  to  be  quite  independent  of  the  existence  of 
the  tragedy.  Perhaps  you  will  not  be  uninterested  in  a  free 
translation  of  the  prose,  which  is  touching.  Daudet  is  de- 
scribing the  house  of  Siebold  on  the  morning  of  his  death. 

"People  were  going  in  and  coming  out,  looking  very  sad. 
One  felt  that  in  that  little  house  something  had  happened, 
too  much  of  a  catastrophe  for  so  small  a  house  to  contain, 
and  therefore  issuing  from  it,  overflowing  from  it,  like  a 
source  of  grief.  On  arriving  I  heard  sobs  inside.  It  was 
at  the  end  of  the  little  corridor,  the  room  where  he  was  lying 
— a  large  room,  encumbered  and  low-lighted  like  a  class- 
room. I  saw  there  a  long  table  of  plain  white  wood — 
heaps  of  books  and  manuscripts — a  glass  case  containing 
collections — picture  books  bound  in  embroidered  silks;  on 
the  wall  were  hanging  Japanese  weapons,  some  prints,  sev- 
eral large  maps;  and  in  the  midst  of  all  this  disorder 
of  travel  and  of  study,  the  Colonel  was  lying  in  his 
bed  with  his  long  white  beard  descending  over  his  dress, 
and  his  poor  niece  kneeling  and  weeping  in  a  corner.  Sie- 
bold had  died  suddenly  in  the  night. 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  121 

"I  left  Munich  the  same  evening,  not  having  the  courage 
to  intrude  upon  all  that  grief  merely  in  order  to  gratify  a 
literary  whim;  and  that  is  how  it  happened  that  I  never 
knew  anything  about  the  marvellous  Japanese  tragedy  ex- 
cept its  title,  TEtnpereur  Aveugle.'  But  since  that  time 
we  had  to  see  the  performance  of  another  tragedy  to  which 
that  title  might  very  well  have  been  given — a  terrible  trag- 
edy full  of  blood  and  tears;  and  that  was  not  a  Japanese 
tragedy  at  all." 

He  is  referring  to  the  Franco-Prussian  War  and  the  folly 
of  Napoleon  III  who  caused  it.  It  was  Napoleon  III  who 
was  really  the  blind  emperor. 

Altogether  it  may  be  said  that  the  sketch  is  particularly 
French,  as  a  special  department  of  literature,  and  I  think 
that  it  ought  to  become  especially  Japanese,  because  the 
genius  of  the  race  is  in  the  direction  of  the  sketch.  But  at 
present  the  best  models  to  study  are  nearly  all  French. 
Daudet  is  but  one  of  a  host.  Maupassant  is  another  and  a 
greater — many  of  his  wonderful  so-called  stories  being 
really  sketches,  not  stories.  For  example,  three  of  his  com- 
positions described  three  different  things  which  he  hap- 
pened to  see  while  travelling  on  a  train.  Incidents  of  hu- 
man life  thus  seen  and  powerfully  described,  may  have  an 
emotional  interest  much  greater  than  that  of  the  average 
story;  and  yet  we  must  not  call  them  stories.  Anatole 
France,  perhaps  the  greatest  French  man  of  letters  today, 
and  Jules  Lemaitre,  the  greatest  living  French  critic,  are 
both  of  them  admirable  sketch-writers,  as  well  as  story- 
tellers. The  first  great  realistic  attempt  in  this  direction 
was  probably  that  of  Prosper  Merimee;  and  Flaubert  car- 
ried the  method  to  great  perfection.  I  spoke  of  these  men 
before  as  story-tellers,  not  as  sketch-writers.  The  best  ex- 
ample of  the  sketch  by  Merimee  is  the  account  of  the  storm- 
ing of  a  fort,  told  by  a  soldier  who  was  one  of  the  storming 
party.  As  a  sketch  that  has  never  been  surpassed.  But 
today  in  France  there  are  published  every  month  hundreds 


122  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

of  sketches,  and  a  very  considerable  number  of  them  are 
good.  In  England  the  novel  has  been  too  popular  to  allow 
of  the  same  development.  But  there  are  good  English 
sketch  writers ;  and  these  are  particularly  noticeable  in  books 
of  travel — for  example,  "Eothen,"  by  Kinglake,  the  his- 
torian,— a  little  book  entirely  formed  of  exquisite  sketches 
which  will  certainly  live  after  Kinglake's  historical  work 
has  been  entirely  forgotten. 

Of  course  this  book  is  representative  only  of  the  travel- 
sketch — a  kind  apart.  Now  there  is  one  thing  to  notice 
about  the  conservatism  of  English  literary  feeling,  as  com- 
pared to  the  French,  in  regard  to  the  sketch.  In  England 
a  volume  of  sketches  will  be  favourably  considered  only 
upon  condition  that  the  sketches  be  consecutive — that  they 
figure  in  one  series  of  events,  or  that  they  all  have  some 
other  form  of  interconnection.  Thus  the  little  book  of 
travel  by  Kinglake  and  the  travel  sketches  by  Stevenson 
depended  much  for  their  popularity  upon  the  fact  that  they 
were  all  upon  kindred  subjects,  and  strung  together  by  a 
train  of  narrative.  This  is  true  even  of  the  older  sketch 
work  in  England — that  of  Thackeray;  that  of  the  famous 
Dr.  Brown  of  Edinburgh,  who  wrote  the  delicious  book  about 
the  feelings  and  thoughts  of  a  little  girl ;  that  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  sketch-writers  of  the  school  of  Addison  and 
Steele.  But  it  is  quite  different  with  French  work.  The 
French  artist  of  today  can  make  a  volume  of  sketches  no 
one  of  which  has  the  least  relation  to  the  other;  and  his 
work  is  never  criticized  upon  that  score.  All  that  is  in- 
sisted upon  is  the  quality  of  the  production;  each  sketch 
should  be  a  complete  work  of  art  in  itself.  This  being  the 
case,  it  is  of  no  more  importance  whether  the  sketches  be 
related  to  each  other  than  whether  the  paintings  in  a  pic- 
ture gallery  happen  all  to  be  on  the  same  subject.  This  free- 
dom will  certainly  be  enjoyed  later  on  by  men  of  letters — 
that  is  the  tendency.     But  there  is  still  a  great  deal  of 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  123 

foolish  conservatism,  and  writers  like  Kipling,  who  attempt 
to  make  sketches  the  material  of  their  books,  are  judged  to 
have  broken  the  literary  canons  unless  the  sketches  have 
some  connection  between  them. 

As  I  have  said  before,  the  various  capabilities  of  the 
sketch  cannot  be  properly  suggested  without  some  illustra- 
tive fragments;  and  I  must  quote  one  or  two  examples 
more.     The  humorous  sketch,  the  little  sketch  of  incident, 
the  little  sketch  of  memory — the  memory  of  acquaintance- 
ship or  travel — we  have  noticed.     You  can  easily  imagine  a 
hundred  kinds  of  each.     But  I  have  not  yet  said  anything 
about  another  kind  of  sketch  which  is  now  likely  to  come 
into  fashion — the  sketch  of  psychological  impressions.     It 
must  be  interesting,  even  if  scientific;  and  it  may  be  both. 
The  best  usually  are.     American  literature  first  gave  strong 
examples  of  work  in  this  particular  direction — that  is,  in 
English  literature  proper.     But  it  is  significant  that  Dr. 
Holmes,  the  pioneer  in  it,  studied  a  long  time  in  France, 
and,  though  no  imitator,  he  was  no  doubt  much  influenced  by 
the  best  quality  of  French  sketch  work.     Then  again,  his 
training  in  science — first  as  a  practising  physician  and  after- 
wards as  a  professor  of  anatomy  in  a  medical  school — 
naturally  inclined  him  to  the  consideration  of  matter  alto- 
gether outside  of  the  beaten  tracks.     Very  slight  happen- 
ings take,  in  such  a  mind,  an  importance  which  extends  far 
beyond  the  range  of  the  common  mind.     And  his  great  book, 
the    "Autocrat    of    the    Breakfast    Table,"    now    known 
wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken,  entirely  consists 
of  little  sketches  about  very  ordinary  things  considered  in  a 
very  extraordinary  way — for  example,  the  mystery  of  the 
charm  that  exists  in  certain  human  voices.     He  hears  a 
child  speak,  or  a  woman,  and  asks  himself  why  the  sweet- 
ness of  the  tone  pleases  so  much — and  tells  us  at  the  same 
time  of  memories  which  the  voice  awakens  in  his  mind. 


1U  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

We  all  have  vague  notions  about  these  things,  but  we  sel- 
dom try  to  define  them.  Indeed,  it  requires  a  very  great 
talent  to  define  them  to  any  literary  purpose.  But  listen 
to  this : 

"There  are  sweet  voices  among  us,  we  all  know,  and 
voices  not  musical,  it  may  be,  to  those  who  hear  them  for 
the  first  time,  yet  sweeter  to  us  than  any  we  shall  hear  until 
we  listen  to  some  warbling  angel  in  the  overture  to  that 
eternity  of  blissful  harmony  we  hope  to  enjoy.  But  why 
should  I  tell  lies'?  I  never  heard  but  two  voices  in  my  life 
that  frightened  me  by  their  sweetness.  Yes,  frightened 
me.  They  made  me  feel  as  if  there  might  be  constituted  a 
creature  with  such  a  chord  in  her  voice  to  some  string  in  an- 
other's soul  that  if  she  but  spoke,  he  would  leave  all  and 
follow  her  though  it  were  into  the  jaws  of  Erebus. 

"Whose  were  those  two  voices  that  bewitched  me  so"? 
They  both  belonged  to  German  women.  One  was  a  cham- 
ber-maid— not  otherwise  fascinating.  The  key  of  my  room 
at  a  certain  great  hotel  was  missing,  and  this  Teutonic 
maiden  was  summoned  to  give  information  respecting  it. 
The  simple  soul  was  evidently  not  long  from  her  mother- 
land, and  spoke  with  sweet  uncertainty  of  dialect.  But  to 
hear  her  wonder  and  lament  and  suggest  with  soft  liquid  in- 
flections and  low  sad  murmurs,  in  tones  as  full  of  serious 
tenderness  for  the  fate  of  the  lost  key  as  if  it  had  been  a 
child  that  had  strayed  from  its  mother,  was  so  winning 
that,  had  her  features  and  figure  been  as  delicious  as  her 
accents, — if  she  had  looked  like  the  marble  Clytie,  for  ex- 
ample, why  I  should  have  drowned  myself." 

Why  would  he  have  drowned  himself1?  Because,  he  tells 
us,  in  that  case  he  would  want  to  marry  her;  and  if  he  had 
married  her,  it  would  have  been  a  case  of  mesalliance,  ac- 
cording to  the  rules  of  society  to  which  he  belonged, — and 
that  would  have  made  a  great  deal  of  unhappiness  for  both 
of  them  and  for  their  children.  And  it  would  therefore 
have  been  better  for  the  sake  of  future  generations,  as  well 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  125 

as  his  own,  that  he  should  have  drowned  himself.  But 
now  let  us  hear  him  describe  the  other  voice  of  another  Ger- 
man woman : 

"That  voice  had  so  much  of  woman  in  it, — muliebrity,  as 
well  as  femininity; — no  self-assertion,  such  as  free  suf- 
frage introduces  into  every  word  and  movement;  large 
vigorous  nature,  running  back  to  those  huge-limbed  Ger- 
mans of  Tacitus,  but  subdued  by  the  reverential  training  and 
tuned  by  the  kindly  culture  of  fifty  generations."  And  he 
goes  on  to  tell  us  no  American  woman  could  possibly  have 
such  a  beautiful  voice,  because  no  American  woman  has 
had  the  cultured  ancestors  whose  influences  combined  to 
make  the  sweetness  of  that  voice.  Remember  that  it  is 
an  American  who  is  speaking — but  he  speaks  the  truth.  He 
means  that  in  the  voice  of  this  lady  there  was  at  once  sweet- 
ness and  a  strength  that  gave  the  impression  of  everything 
at  once  wifely  and  womanly, — of  everything  that  is  im- 
plied in  the  beautiful  German  term  "mother  soul"  and  of 
"centuries  of  habitual  obedience  and  delicacy  and  desire 
to  please." 

He  has  one  more  reminiscence  to  give  us,  about  the  voice 
of  a  child;  and  the  experience  is  a  painful  one.  It  is  not 
every  doctor  who  can  write  of  such  a  memory  with  such 
fine  feeling. 

"Ah,  but  I  must  not  forget  that  dear  little  child  I  saw 
and  heard  in  a  French  hospital.  Between  two  and  three 
years  old.  Fell  out  of  her  chair  and  snapped  both  thigh- 
bones. Lying  in  bed  patient,  gentle.  Rough  students 
round  her,  some  in  white  aprons,  looking  fearfully  business- 
like; but  the  child  was  placid — perfectly  still.  I  spoke  to 
her  and  the  blessed  little  creature  answered  me  in  a  voice  of 
such  heavenly  sweetness,  and  with  that  reedy  thrill  in  it 
which  you  have  heard  in  the  thrush's  even-song,  that  I  seem 
to  hear  it  at  this  moment,  while  I  am  writing,  so  many,  many 
years  afterward.  "O'est  tout  comme  un  serin"  (It  is  quite 
like  a  canary  bird),  said  the  French  student  at  my  side." 


126  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

He  goes  on  to  say  that  there  was  an  old  story  to  the  ef- 
fect that  most  human  beings  were  devils,  who  were  born 
for  a  respite  into  the  state  of  men  and  women,  and  that  con- 
sidering the  wicked  side  of  human  nature  the  story  might 
seem  true;  but  those  who  have  heard  certain  sweet  voices 
must  be  assured  that  all  human  beings  have  not  been  devils 
— and  that  some  heavenly  spirits  must  have  been  born 
among  them,  as  by  accident.  This  is  a  very  pretty  exam- 
ple of  a  little  sketch  of  sensation.  The  whole  book  is  made 
of  dainty  reflections  and  memories  of  this  sort,  interspersed 
with  bits  of  arguments  and  conversation  and  commentary. 
However,  the  fact  that  all  the  parts  are  united  by  the  thin- 
nest possible  thread  of  a  story  certainly  helped  the  book  to 
the  great  success  which  it  obtained  in  conservative  Eng- 
land. 

Yet  another  kind  of  sketch  work  is  that  which  offers  us 
a  picture  of  something  very  large  within  a  very  small  space, 
like  a  glimpse  of  the  heavens  by  night,  or  the  geographical 
configuration  of  a  whole  country.  This  can  be  done  quite 
as  certainly  as  it  might  be  done  in  mosaic,  or  in  very  skilful 
painting,  or  by  a  coloured  photograph.  For  example,  Rus- 
kin  has  described  the  whole  of  Italy  in  about  half  a  page. 
Of  course  in  order  to  do  such  a  thing  as  this,  complete  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject,  with  all  its  details,  must  first  be 
acquired;  only  then  can  we  know  how  to  make  the  great 
lines  of  the  picture  quite  accurate  and  to  give  the  proper 
sense  of  proportion.  See  how  Ruskin  does  it.  We  all  have 
in  our  minds  a  vague  picture  or  idea  of  Italy.  This  helps 
us  to  collect  and  to  define.  It  was  not  written  originally  as 
a  sketch;  but  it  is  a  sketch  quite  detached  from  its  context, 
and  altogether  complete  in  itself. 

"We  are  accustomed  to  hear  the  South  of  Italy  spoken 
of  as  a  beautiful  country;  its  mountain  forms  are  graceful 
above  others,  its  sea-bays  are  exquisite  in  outline  and  hue; 
but  it  is  only  beautiful  in  superficial  aspect.  In  closer  de- 
tail it  is  wild  and  melancholy.     Its  forests  are  sombre- 


THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS  127 

leaved,  labyrinth-stemmed;  the  carubbe,  the  olive,  the  laurel, 
and  ilix  are  alike  in  that  strange  feverish  twisting  of  their 
branches,  as  if  in  spasms  of  half  human  pain.  Avernus 
forests ;  one  fears  to  break  their  boughs,  lest  they  should  cry 
to  us  from  the  rents;  the  rocks  they  shade  are  of  ashes  or 
thrice-molten  lava;  iron  sponge,  whose  every  pore  has  been 
filled  with  fire.  Silent  villages,  earthquake  shaken,  with- 
out commerce,  without  industry,  without  knowledge,  with- 
out hope,  gleam  in  white  ruin  from  hillside  to  hillside; 
winding  wrecks  of  immemorial  wars  surround  the  dust  of 
cities  long  forsaken;  the  mountain  streams  moan  through 
the  cold  arches  of  their  foundation,  green  with  weed,  and 
rage  over  the  heaps  of  their  fallen  towers;  far  above,  in 
thunder-blue  serration,  stand  the  eternal  edges  of  the  angry 
Apennine,  dark  with  rolling  impendence  of  volcanic  cloud." 

There  is  here  not  merely  a  suggestion  of  beauty  seen  far 
away  and  of  ghastliness  seen  near  at  hand  but  also  sug- 
gestions of  old  mythology,  old  Greek  primal  settlements 
on  the  Italian  coasts,  old  cataclysms,  old  decay  of  wealth 
and  commerce — in  short,  suggestions  about  everything  char- 
acteristic of  the  modern  state  of  the  country.  To  produce 
this  kind  of  work  one  must  know  imagination  does  not 
help  us.  The  sentences  each  and  all  represent  successive 
personal  experience.  From  the  first  example  which  I  gave 
you  to  the  last  there  is  a  range  of  extraordinary  possibility, 
The  very  simplest  power  may  here  be  contrasted  with  the 
very  greatest.  I  think  we  did  well  to  begin  with  the  playful 
and  end  with  the  majestic.  All  these  are  possible  within 
the  compass  of  the  sketch. 

Now  I  may  close  with  a  brief  suggestion  about  a  modern 
tendency  in  the  literature  of  the  sketch.  It  is  not  my  own ; 
I  found  it  the  other  day  in  the  work  of  the  greatest  sketch 
writer  at  present  living — in  the  work  of  that  wonderful 
French  author  who  has  given  an  account  of  what  he  saw 
on  the  way  to  Pekin,  after  the  late  war.  He  describes  a 
great  many  things  too  horrible  even  to  mention  in  a  lecture, 


128  THE  PROSE  OF  SMALL  THINGS 

and  many  very  touching  things,  and  many  strange  things; 
and  the  general  effect  of  the  book  is  to  leave  in  the  reader's 
mind  a  very  great  feeling  of  regret  and  sympathy  for 
China.  In  spite  of  the  weather  and  the  horrors,  and  diffi- 
culties of  many  kinds,  he  was  able  to  visit  the  great  memorial 
temple  of  Confucius,  and  to  give  us  wonderful  pictures  rep- 
resenting every  part  of  it.  Now  the  most  impressive  thing 
was  a  sentence  inscribed  upon  some  tablets  in  one  of  the 
rooms  there — inscribed  from  very  ancient  time;  and  it  was 
translated  to  him  as  signifying  these  words:  "The  litera- 
ture of  the  Future  will  be  the  literature  of  Pity."  Very 
probably  the  effect  of  reading  this  ancient  prophecy  was 
greatly  increased  by  the  previous  experiences  of  the  writer, 
who  had  passed  out  of  the  waste  of  horrors  and  death,  and 
absence  of  all  pity,  out  of  the  plains  where  dogs  were  de- 
vouring the  dead,  into  that  solemn  quietude,  where  the  tablet 
was  suspended.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  translation 
would  be  questioned  by  scholars  or  not.  But  if  the  render- 
ing of  the  characters  was  correct,  that  old  Chinese  prophecy 
about  the  future  of  literature  certainly  startles  us  by  its 
truth.  That  is  the  tendency  of  the  best  thought  and  the 
best  feeling  of  this  literary  age  in  the  West.  The  litera- 
ture of  the  future  will  be  the  literature  of  pity — pity  in 
the  old  Roman  sense,  and  in  the  old  Greek  sense,  which 
did  not  mean  contempt  mixed  with  pity,  but  pure  sympathy 
with  all  forms  of  human  suffering.  I  think  that  the  modern 
word  "humanity"  would  best  express  what  the  Greeks  meant 
by  pity.  Now  the  kind  of  writing  which  has  been  the 
subject  of  this  lecture  is  especially  suited  to  the  Literature 
of  Pity.  It  is  by  giving  to  the  world  little  pictures  of 
life  and  thought  and  feeling,  joy  and  sorrow,  gladness  and 
gloom,  that  the  average  mind  can  best  be  awakened  to  a 
final  sense  of  what  the  age  most  profoundly  needs — the 
sense  of  unselfish  sympathy.  And  here  we  may  end  our 
lecture  on  the  Sketch. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

At  the  present  time  (1900)  scarcely  any  English  poet  is 
more  in  vogue  than  George  Meredith.  His  popularity  is 
comparatively  new,  but  it  is  founded  upon  solid  excellence 
of  a  very  extraordinary  kind.  George  Meredith  is  an  ex- 
ception to  general  rules — even  to  the  rule  that  a  great  poet 
is  scarcely  ever  a  great  prose  writer;  for  he  was  known  to 
the  public  as  a  novelist  for  half  a  century  before  he  began 
to  be  known  as  a  poet.  Today  he  is  so  often  quoted  from, 
so  often  referred  to,  that  we  cannot  ignore  him  in  the  course 
of  lectures  upon  English  literature. 

He  is  now  nearly  seventy-two  years  old,  having  been 
born  in  1828.  He  studied  mostly  in  Germany,  and  studied 
law,  but  he  had  scarcely  left  his  university  when  he  resolved 
to  abandon  law  and  devote  his  life  to  literature.  Return- 
ing to  England  he  published  his  first  book,  a  volume  of 
poems,  in  1851.  It  attracted  no  notice  at  all.  In  1856 
his  next  book  appeared,  called  "The  Shaving  of  Shag- 
pat,"  a  wonderful  fairy-tale,  written  in  imitation  of  the 
Arabian  Nights  with  Arabian  characters  and  scenery.  It 
remains  the  best  thing  of  the  kind  ever  done  by  any  Euro- 
pean writer,  but  the  kind  was  not  popular,  and  only  a 
few  of  the  great  poets  and  critics  noticed  what  a  wonderful 
book  it  was.  After  that  Meredith  took  up  novel  writing, 
studying  English  life  and  character  in  an  entirely  new  way. 
But  he  was  not  at  first  able  to  attract  much  attention.  His 
novels  were  too  scholarly  and  too  psychological.  Ten  years 
from  the  date  of  his  first  volume  of  poems,  in  1862,  he 
published  another  book  of  verses,  entitled  "Modern  Love." 
This  attracted  the  notice  of  Swinburne,  but  of  scarcely 
anybody  else,  and  Meredith  went  back  to  novel  writing. 

129 


130   THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Twenty  years  later,  in  1883,  a  third  volume  of  poems  ap- 
peared, "Poems  and  Lyrics  of  the  Joy  of  Earth."  This 
book  obtained  some  critical  praise,  but  only  the  cultivated 
men  of  letters  appreciated  it.  More  novels  followed,  and 
in  1887  and  1888  appeared  the  last  volumes  of  poems, 
"Ballads  and  Poems  of  Tragic  Life,"  and  "A  Reading  of 
Earth."  Since  then  Meredith  has  chiefly  written  novels, 
but  occasionally  he  writes  poems.  Success  came  to  him  only 
in  old  age — within  the  last  twenty  years.  It  is  not  within 
the  purpose  of  this  lecture  to  speak  of  his  novels  at  all ;  we 
shall  deal  only  with  his  poetry. 

At  the  first  sight  of  such  poetry  a  good  judge  would 
naturally  exclaim,  "How  is  it  that  I  never  heard  of  this 
wonderful  poet  before'?"  But  a  further  examination  will 
easily  furnish  the  reason.  Meredith  is  uncommonly  diffi- 
cult as  well  as  uncommonly  deep.  He  has  the  obscurity  of 
Browning,  and  yet  a  profundity  exceeding  Browning's;  he 
is  essentially  a  psychological  poet,  but  he  is  also  an  evolu- 
tional philosopher,  which  Browning  scarcely  was.  He  did 
not  study  in  Germany  for  nothing,  and  he  alone  of  all  living 
Englishmen  really  expresses  the  whole  philosophy .  of  the 
modern  scientific  age.  Now  such  a  man  necessarily  found 
himself  in  a  peculiar  position.  The  older  thinkers  of  his 
own  time  could  scarcely  understand  him;  he  was  uttering 
new  thoughts,  and  uttering  them  often  in  a  German  rather 
than  in  an  English  way.  The  younger  thinkers  of  the  period 
were  still  at  school  or  in  the  university  when  he  began  to 
express  himself.  His  audience  was  therefore  extremely 
small  at  first.  Now  it  is  very  large,  and  he  is  known  as 
well  in  France  and  Germany  as  at  home,  but  we  may  say 
that  he  gave  his  whole  life  for  this  success. 

A  word  now  about  his  philosophy.  Meredith  is  a  thinker 
of  the  broadest  and  most  advanced  type,  but  he  is  essen- 
tially optimistic — that  is,  he  considers  all  things  as  an  evolu- 
tionist, but  also  as  one  who  believes  that  the  tendency  of 
the  laws  which  govern  the  universe  is  toward  the  highest 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        131 

possible  good.  He  believes  the  world  to  be  the  best  possible 
world  which  man  could  desire,  and  he  thinks  that  all  the 
unhappiness  and  folly  of  men  is  due  only  to  ignorance  and 
to  weakness.  He  proclaims  that  the  world  can  give  every 
joy  and  every  pleasure  possible  to  those  who  are  both  wise 
and  strong.  Above  all  else  he  preaches  the  duty  of  moral 
strength — the  power  to  control  our  passions  and  impulses. 
He  has,  however,  very  little  compassion  in  him;  he  is  a 
terribly  stern  teacher,  never  pitying  weakness,  never  for- 
giving ignorance.  He  never  talks  of  any  theological  God 
— not  at  least  as  a  God  to  believe  in;  but  you  get  from  all 
his  poetry  the  general  impression  that  he  considers  the  work- 
ing of  the  universe  divine.  It  will  not  be  necessary  to  say 
more  here  about  his  opinions,  because  we  shall  find  them 
better  expressed  in  his  poems  than  they  could  be  in  any 
attempt  at  a  brief  resume. 

I  think  that  it  will  be  better  to  take  some  of  his  simpler 
poems  first,  for  study;  indeed  the  longer  ones  are  very  diffi- 
cult and  would  require  much  explanation  as  well  as  para- 
phrasing. The  shorter  ones  will  better  serve  the  first  pur- 
pose of  showing  you  how  different  this  man's  poetry  is 
from  that  of  any  other  English  poet  of  the  time.  The  first 
example  will  be  from  "Ballads  and  Poems  of  Tragic  Life." 
I  need  not  explain  to  you  the  meaning  of  the  word  "Tragic." 
But  the  tragedies  in  which  Meredith  is  interested  are  never 
tragedies  of  mere  physical  pain.  There  may  be  some  kill- 
ing in  them,  but  the  shedding  of  blood  does  not  mean  the 
tragedy.  "King  Harald's  Trance"  is  a  good  illustration  of 
this. 

Harald — a  name  common  in  Scandinavian  history — we 
may  suppose  to  be  a  Norwegian  Viking.  The  Vikings  of 
old  Norway  were  the  most  terrible  men  that  ever  lived, 
but  they  were  also  among  the  grandest  and  noblest.  Their 
trade  was  war,  their  religion  was  war,  their  idea  of  happi- 
ness after  death  was  still  war — eternal  war  in  heaven, 
ghostly  fighting  on  the  side  of  the  gods.     Such  an  idea  of 


132       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

life  requires  many  great  qualities  as  well  as  natural  fear- 
lessness and  great  physical  strength.  These  men  had  to 
learn  from  childhood  not  only  how  to  fight,  but  how  to 
control  their  passions,  for  in  righting,  you  know  that  the 
man  who  first  gets  angry  is  almost  certain  to  get  beaten. 
The  Norse  character  was  above  all  things  a  character  of  great 
self-mastery,  and  the  finer  qualities  of  it  are  those  which  have 
also  made  the  finer  qualities  of  both  the  German  and  the  Eng- 
lish speaking  races  of  the  modern  world.  It  occurred  to  the 
poet  Meredith  to  study  such  a  character  among  its  ancient 
surroundings,  and  among  the  most  trying  possible  circum- 
stances. What  could  break  down  such  mighty  strength? 
What  could  conquer  such  iron  hearts?     We  are  going  to  see. 


Sword  in  length  a  reaping-hook  amain 
Harald  sheared  his  field,  blood  up  to  shank; 

'Mid  the  swathes  of  slain 

First  at  moonrise  drank. 

II 

Thereof  hunger,  as  for  meats  the  knife, 
Pricked  his  ribs,  in  one  sharp  spur  to  reach 

Home  and  his  young  wife, 

By  the  sea-ford  beach. 

Ill 

After  battle  keen  to  feed  was  he, 

Smoking  flesh  the  thresher  washed  down  fast, 

Like  an  angry  sea 

Ships  from  keel  to  mast. 

IV 

Name  us  glory,  singer,  name  us  pride, 
Matching  Harald's  in  his  deeds  of  strength; 
Chiefs,  wife,  sword  by  side, 
Foeman  stretched  their  length. 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH   133 


Half  a  winter  night  the  toasts  hurrahed 
Crowned  him,  clothed  him,  trumpeted  him  high, 

Till  awink  he  bade, 

Wife  to  chamber  fly. 

Mightily  Harald,  as  a  reaper  in  a  field  of  corn  mows 
down  the  grain,  with  his  scythe-long  sword  mowed  down 
the  enemy — standing  in  blood  up  to  his  ankles.  All  day 
he  slew,  and  when  the  battle  was  finished  after  dark  and 
the  dead  lay  all  about  him,  like  the  swathes  of  grain  cut 
down  by  reapers,  then  for  the  first  time  he  was  able  to  drink, 
as  the  moon  began  to  rise. 

Then  the  great  effort  and  excitement  of  the  battle  left  him 
hungry.  His  hunger  pricked  him  like  a  knife — impelled 
him  to  mount  his  horse  and  gallop  straight  home  at  full 
speed  to  where  his  young  wife  was  waiting  for  news  of  him. 

He  always  ate  prodigiously  after  fighting;  to  see  him 
eating  roast  meat  and  washing  it  down  his  great  throat  with 
drinks  of  ale  after  a  battle,  made  one  think  of  the  spectacle 
of  a  stormy  sea  swallowing  ships. 

Then  came  the  customary  banqueting  and  singing  and 
drinking.  Professional  singers  sang  songs  in  praise  of  his 
fighting  that  day,  while  he  sat  enthroned  among  his  warriors, 
with  his  sword  by  his  side,  and  his  young  wife  seated  at 
his  right  hand.     All  his  enemies  were  dead. 

For  half  the  night  the  drinking  and  singing  continued. 
Harald  had  to  sit  there  and  hear  himself  praised,  and  drink 
whenever  his  own  health  was  drunk  to — such  was  the  cus- 
tom. But  when  the  strong  men  had  begun  to  show  the 
influence  of  liquor  too  much,  the  king  made  a  sign  to  his 
wife  to  withdraw  to  her  own  room.  When  the  warriors 
drank  too  much,  it  was  not  a  time  for  women  to  be  present. 

This  is  the  substance  of  the  first  part  of  the  poem.  Ob- 
serve that  Harald  is  never  spoken  of  as  having  been  fatigued 
by  his  battle;  fighting  only  makes  him  hungry.     This  is  a 


134       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

giant  and  probably  a  kindly  giant  in  his  way;  we  see  that 
he  is  fond  of  his  young  wife.  But  he  cannot  retire  from 
the  banquet  according  to  the  custom  of  his  people.  He 
must  drink  with  everybody  after  the  great  victory.  And 
he  drinks  so  much  that  he  remains  like  a  dead  man  for  three 
days.     Only  after  that,  his  great  strength  is  to  be  tried. 

VI 

Twice  the  sun  had  mounted,  twice  had  sunk, 
Ere  his  ears  took  sound ; — he  lay  for  dead ; 

Mountain  on  his  trunk, 

Ocean  on  his  head. 

VII 

Clamped  to  couch,  his  fiery  hearing  sucked 
Whispers  that  at  heart  made  iron-clang ; 

Here  fool-women  clucked, 

There  men  held  harangue. 

VIII 

Burial  to  fit  their  lord  of  war, 

They  decreed  him ;  hailed  the  kingling,  ha ! 

Hateful !  but  this  Thor 

Failed  a  weak  lamb's  baa. 

IX 

King  they  hailed  a  branchlet,  shaped  to  fare, 
Weighted  so,  like  quaking  shingle-spume, 

When  his  blood's  own  heir 

Ripened  in  the  womb. 

Twice  the  sun  had  risen  and  had  set,  yet  Harald  had 
not  stirred.  His  hearing  returned;  but  he  could  not  move, 
could  not  speak,  could  not  open  his  eyes.  Upon  his  breast 
there  seemed  to  be  a  weight  like  the  weight  of  a  mountain 
keeping  him  down;  above  his  head  it  seemed  to  him  that 
there  was  a  whole  ocean — in  his  head  there  was  the  sound 
of  it. 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        135 

But  soon  other  sounds  came  to  his  ears,  as  he  lay  upon 
his  bed,  as  if  fixed  to  it  with  bands  of  iron.  He  heard 
whispers  that  made  a  disturbance  at  his  heart.  He  heard 
women  cluttering  like  hens;  he  heard  also  men  making 
speeches. 

What  were  they  making  speeches  about1?  About  him. 
He  heard  them  say  that  he  was  dead;  that  he  must  be 
grandly  buried  like  a  great  warrior  and  king.  And  he  heard 
them  talk  of  the  new  king — rather,  of  the  kingling.  Why 
did  they  appoint  so  weak  a  man  to  be  king?  How  quickly 
he  could  stop  all  that  with  a  word.  But  although  he  had 
been  as  strong  and  terrible  as  the  God  Thor,  he  could  not 
now  even  make  a  noise  like  the  bleat  of  a  lamb. 

Still  he  listened,  he  heard  more.  This  king  that  was  to 
be  was  only  very  distantly  related  to  him.  Such  a  man 
never  could  have  force  of  will  to  rule  the  men  of  that 
country.  He  would  have  no  more  power  than  sea  foam 
on  a  beach  of  rocks.  But  why  should  a  king  have  been 
elected  at  all?  Was  not  his  own  wife  soon  to  become  a 
mother?  His  child  would  be  a  man  fit  to  rule.  While 
the  child  wTas  still  a  child,  the  chiefs  could  govern.  Why 
did  they  elect  that  other? 

He  is  going  to  learn  why — and  this  is  the  beginning  of 
the  terrible  part  of  the  poem. 

X 

Still  he  heard,  and  dog-like,  hog-like,  ran 
Nose  of  hearing  till  his  blind  sight  saw: 

Woman  stood  with  man, 

Mounting  low,  at  paw. 

XI 

Woman,  man,  they  mounted ;  they  spake  a  thing 
Armed  to  split  a  mountain,  sunder  seas: 

Still  the  frozen  king 

Lay  out  and  felt  him  freeze. 


136       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

XII 

Dog-like,  hog-like,  horse-like  now  he  raced, 
Riderless,  in  ghost  across  a  ground 

Flint  of  breast,  blank-faced, 

Past  the  fleshly  bound. 

Still  the  King  listened  in  his  trance,  and  he  listened  until 
his  hearing  acted  for  him  as  a  dog  acts  for  the  hunter,  or 
as  a  wild  hog  acts,  following  the  scents  of  the  roots  that 
he  wants  even  under  the  surface  of  the  ground.  Alone  by 
his  hearing  he  perceived  what  was  going  on;  his  eyes  could 
not  see,  but  his  mind  saw  even  more  clearly  than  eyes. 
His  young  wife  had  been  false  to  him;  she  was  talking 
to  another  man  even  there  within  his  own  house;  they  were 
kissing  each  other,  they  were  touching  each  other,  they  were 
speaking  wickedness,  such  wickedness  as  would  have  power 
to  split  a  mountain  or  to  separate  the  waters  of  the  sea — 
crime  such  as  would  destroy  the  world.  But  he,  the  giant 
they  betrayed,  the  King  they  betrayed,  the  husband,  he  could 
not  move.  Coldness  of  death  is  about  him;  he  feels  his 
blood  freezing.  O!  for  the  days  when  he  could  renew  his 
strength  in  a  moment  merely  by  filling  his  great  lungs  with 
the  sea  winds.  "If  I  could  only  breathe  the  sea  wind  for 
one  second,"  he  thinks,  "then  I  could  rise  up."  And  the 
ghost  of  him  really  seeks  the  shore  of  the  sea,  the  flint- 
breasted  naked  rocks  of  the  beach — racing  like  a  horse  in 
order  to  get  strength  from  the  sea  wind  to  awaken  the  great 
inert  body.  When  the  ghost  gets  in,  then  the  King  can 
wake. 

XIII 

Smell  of  brine  his  nostrils  filled  with  might, 
Nostrils  quickened  eyelids,  eyelids  hand ; 

Hand  for  sword  at  right 

Groped,  the  great  haft  spanned. 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        137 

XIV 

Wonder  struck  to  ice  his  people's  eyes ; 
Him  they  saw,  the  prone  upon  the  bier, 

Sheer  from  backbone  rise, 

Sword-uplifting  peer. 

XV 

Sitting  did  he  breath  against  that  blade, 
Standing  kiss  it  for  that  proof  of  life, 

Strode,  as  netters  wade 

Straightway  to  his  wife. 

Here  the  scene  has  suddenly  changed.  We  are  on  the 
sea  shore.  But  you  will  remember  that  in  the  last  of  the 
verses  before  paraphrased,  we  were  in  the  house,  and  the 
man  imagined  himself  moving  as  a  ghost  on  the  sea-shore 
in  search  of  strength.  Before  we  paraphrase  again,  it  is 
necessary  to  understand  this.  First  I  must  tell  you  that 
Meredith  does  not  believe  in  ghosts,  and  does  not  want 
us  to  imagine  that  the  man's  spirit  was  really  moving  out- 
side of  his  body.  He  has  been  describing  only  the  feeling 
and  imagination  of  the  warrior,  in  the  state  between  life 
and  death.  It  was  the  custom  to  burn  the  dead  body  of  a 
great  sea-king  on  the  sea  shore,  and  you  must  imagine  that 
the  body  has  been  carried  down  to  the  shore  to  be  burnt. 
Then  the  smell  of  the  sea  really  revived  him.  And  this 
explanation  is  further  required  by  the  fact  that  later  on, 
Harald  is  represented  in  full  armour,  with  his  helmet  upon 
his  head  and  his  sword  laid  by  his  side.  It  was  a  custom 
to  burn  the  warrior  with  his  arms  and  armour.  All  we 
have  been  reading  about  the  ghost  represents  only  what 
Harald  felt,  just  before  his  awakening.  Now  we  will 
paraphrase :  The  smell  of  the  sea  came  to  him;  he  breathed 
the  sea  wind,  and,  as  he  breathed  it,  it  seemed  to  fill  him 
with  strength.  He  opened  his  eyes,  he  saw;  at  once  he 
felt  at  his  right  hand  for  his  sword,  which  he  knew  ought 
to  be  there.     He  felt  the  handle,  grasped  it. 


138       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Then  he  sat  up  on  the  bier,  and  his  men  were  utterly 
astonished,  for  they  had  thought  him  dead;  but  lo!  he  had 
risen  up  straight  to  a  sitting  posture.  They  stared  motion- 
less, as  if  their  eyes  had  been  frozen. 

Sitting  up,  Harald  still  doubted  whether  he  was  really 
alive.  He  lifted  the  blade  of  his  sword  to  his  lips,  and 
breathed  upon  it.  Seeing  his  own  breath  on  the  great  steel, 
he  kissed  the  sword  affectionately,  out  of  gratitude  to  find 
himself  alive  again.  Then  standing  up  he  advanced  toward 
his  wife — slowly,  slowly, — as  a  fisherman  or  a  bird  catcher 
advances,  wading  in  water,  against  a  current. 

XVI 

Her  he  eyed:  his  judgment  was  one  word, 
"Foul-bed  !" — and  she  fell ; — the  blow  clove  two. 

Fearful  for  the  third 

All  their  breath  indrew. 

XVII 

Morning  danced  along  the  waves  to  beach ; 
Dumb  his  chiefs  fetched  breath  for  what  might  hap, 

Glassily  on  each 

Stared  the  iron  cap. 

XVIII 

Sudden,  as  it  were  a  monster  oak 
Split  to  yield  a  limb  by  stress  of  heat, 

Strained  he,  staggered,  broke 

Doubled  at  their  feet. 

He  looked  upon  her  face,  judged  her  guilt,  expressed 
that  judgment  by  the  single  word  "Adulteress" — and  struck. 
His  blow  killed  two,  for  she  was  about  to  become  a  mother. 
Whom  would  he  kill  next*?  Who  was  the  guilty  man? 
Evidently  he  was  not  there;  or  perhaps  Harald  did  not 
know  yet  who  he  was.     Everybody  waited  in  silent  terror. 

The  sun  rose,  sending  his  gold  light  dancing  over  the 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        139 

waves  from  the  East.  And  still  the  men  stood  there  in 
silent  fear.  Harald  said  nothing,  did  not  move;  but  he 
looked  at  each  man  with  a  glassy  stare,  with  the  look  of 
one  who  does  not  find  what  he  is  waiting  for. 

Then  suddenly,  like  a  great  oak  tree,  too  large  to  be 
cut  with  the  ax  and  therefore  possible  only  to  split  by  the 
use  of  fire,  the  giant  seemed  to  make  a  sudden  effort,  he 
moved,  he  staggered,  he  fell  dead  at  their  feet. 

What  is  the  deeper  meaning  of  this  terrible  poem,  founded 
upon  an  historical  fact4?  Simply  that  moral  pain  is  much 
more  powerful  than  physical  pain — that  it  is  capable  of 
breaking  down  any  strength.  Harald  could  not  be  killed 
in  battle  under  ordinary  circumstances;  fighting  could  not 
even  tire  him,  it  only  made  him  hungry  and  thirsty.  No 
physical  excess  could  injure  that  body  of  iron.  His  vast 
eating  and  drinking  only  gave  him  a  heavy  sleep.  But 
when  he  was  wounded  in  his  affections,  by  the  treachery  of 
the  only  being  whom  he  could  love  and  trust,  then  his  heart 
burst.  He  dies  in  the  poem  magnificently,  even  like  a 
moral  hero,  containing  himself  perfectly  until  death  takes 
him  away.  But  the  teaching  of  the  story  is  very  awful  as 
well  as  very  true. 

The  remarkable  thing  to  notice  about  this  poetry  is  its 
compression,  a  compression  that  only  seems  to  make  the 
colour  more  vivid  and  the  emotion  more  forceful.  In  order 
to  paraphrase  it  intelligibly  one  must  use  two  or  three  times 
as  many  words  as  the  poet  uses.  Browning  has  the  same 
strange  power,  and  in  many  ways  Meredith  strongly  re- 
sembles Browning.  But  he  is  much  more  philosophical,  as 
we  see  later  on. 

Of  ballads  written  in  the  true  ballad  form,  there  are 
not  more  than  three  or  four  in  the  whole  book,  notwith- 
standing the  title,  "Ballads  and  Poems."  Another  ballad 
more  famous  than  that  which  I  have  quoted  is  called  "Arch- 
duchess Anne,"  a  title  which  at  once  makes  us  think  of 
various  episodes  in  Austrian  history.     It  is  a  splendid  piece 


140       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

of  psychological  study,  but  less  suitable  for  quotation  than 
the  poem  on  King  Harald,  for  it  is  very  long.  The  object 
of  the  poet  is  to  show  the  consequences  of  a  foolish  act  on 
the  part  of  a  person  ruling  the  destiny  of  a  nation.  Anne 
is  practically  a  queen;  and  she  is  married.  But  she  takes 
a  strong  fancy  to  a  handsome  man  among  her  courtiers, 
Count  Louis.  In  others  words,  she  falls  in  love  with  him. 
He  takes  every  advantage  of  the  situation,  because  he  is 
both  diplomatic  and  selfish.  The  Archduchess  rules  her  own 
cabinet;  but  the  Count  soon  learns  how  to  rule  her;  con- 
sequently he  gets  all  the  power  of  the  government  into  his 
hands.  And  when  he  has  done  this,  he  shows  his  selfish- 
ness. She  immediately  reassumes  her  power,  and  then  there 
is  a  political  quarrel.  The  state  is  divided  in  two  parties. 
Count  Louis  then  does  what  no  gentleman  under  the  cir- 
cumstances could  very  well  do,  he  marries  a  young  wife, 
and  brings  her  to  the  court.  Of  course,  when  there  is,  or 
has  been,  illegitimate  love  in  high  places,  the  fact  can  not 
be  very  well  concealed.  Everybody  knows  it.  The  whole 
court  knows  that  the  Queen  has  loved  Count  Louis,  and 
that  his  marriage,  and,  above  all,  the  bringing  of  his  wife 
to  the  court  is  a  cruel  insult.  One  of  the  Queen's  faithful 
servants,  an  old  general,  determines  to  avenge  her  if  he 
can  ever  get  a  chance.  And  the  chance  comes.  Count 
Louis  Soon  afterwards  incites  a  revolution,  raises  an  army 
and  advances  to  battle.  The  old  general  meets  him,  cap- 
tures him  by  a  cunning  trick,  and  writes  the  Queen  a  letter, 
saying,  "I  have  him."  But  the  old  general  does  not  quite 
understand  a  woman's  heart.  When  a  good  woman — and 
by  "good"  I  mean  especially  affectionate — has  once  loved 
a  man,  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  anything  could  make  her 
afterwards  really  hate  him.  There  was  of  course  the  ex- 
traordinary case  of  Christina  of  Sweden,  who  had  her  lover 
stabbed  to  death  before  her  eyes,  but  in  such  a  case  as  that 
we  do  not  believe  there  was  a  real  affection  at  any  time. 
Anne  is  in  a  very  difficult  position;  she  is  very  angry  with 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        141 

the  prisoner,  but  she  secretly  loves  him.  How  is  she  to 
answer  the  letter  of  her  general*?  If  she  says,  "Do  not 
kill  him,"  the  general  will  think  that  she  is  very  fond  of 
him.  If  she  says,  "Kill  him,"  the  general  will  think  that 
she  is  revengeful  and  the  whole  world  will  think  the  same 
thing.  If  she  says,  "Let  him  go  free,"  that  will  only  make 
the  general  despise  her,  not  to  speak  of  all  the  political 
trouble  that  would  follow.  If  she  says,  "Send  him  to  me 
that  he  may  be  imprisoned  at  once,"  that  would  seem  to 
the  world  as  if  she  wished  to  make  love  to  the  prisoner  by 
force,  to  take  him  away  from  his  wife.  Whatever  she  does 
will  seem  in  some  way  wrong.  She  has  placed  herself  in  a 
false  position  to  begin  with;  and  now  she  does  not  know 
what  to  do.  What  she  really  wishes  is  a  reconciliation 
with  the  man  who  has  been  so  base  to  her,  but  she  dares 
not  say  that  to  the  leader  of  her  armies.  Therefore  she 
writes  a  diplomatic  letter  to  him,  hoping  that  he  can  under- 
stand it.  She  says  that  she  does  not  want  to  be  too  severe ; 
she  speaks  of  religion,  she  trusts  that  her  general  will  know 
what  to  do.  He  determines  that  the  man  shall  die  as 
quickly  as  possible. 

Her  words  he  took,  her  nods  and  winks 

Treated  as  woman's  fog, 
The  man-dog  for  his  mistress  thinks, 

Not  less  her  faithful  dog. 

She  hugged  a  cloak  old  Kraken  ripped, 

Disguise  to  him  he  loathed ; 
Your  mercy,  madam,  shows  you  stripped, 

While  mine  will  keep  you  clothed. 

That  is,  the  old  soldier  determined  to  act  exactly  upon 
the  words  of  the  letter;  as  for  suggestions,  he  refused  to 
pay  any  attention  to  them.  "Women,"  he  thought,  "are 
too  weak.  She  wants  to  hide  her  feelings  from  me.  And 
she  wants  to  be  merciful.  By  law  the  man  is  a  traitor, 
and  ought  to  be  hanged.     But  I  shall  shoot  him  instead — 


143       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

give  him  the  death  of  a  soldier,  that  is  mercy  enough.  My 
mercy  will  hide  the  Queen's  shame;  her  mercy  would  pro- 
claim that  shame  to  the  whole  world."  So  Count  Louis  is 
shot.  Before  this,  however,  the  young  wife  of  Count  Louis 
goes  to  the  Archduchess  to  beg  for  her  husband's  life,  and 
this  is  a  very  touching  part  of  the  poem.  Of  course  this 
innocent  young  wife  does  not  know  what  has  happened  in 
the  past,  and  can  not  know  what  pain  her  presence  is  giving. 

The  Countess  Louis  from  her  head 

Drew  veil,  "Great  Lady,  hear ! 
My  husband  deems  your  Justice  dread, 

I  know  you  Mercy  dear. 

His  error  upon  him  may  fall, 

He  will  not  breath  a  nay. 
I  am  his  helpless  mate  in  all, 

Except  for  grace  to  pray. 

Perchance  on  me  his  choice  inclined, 

To  give  his  house  an  heir; 
I  had  not  marriage  with  his  mind, — 

His  counsel  could  not  share. 

I  brought  no  portion  for  his  weal 

But  this  one  instinct  true, 
Which  bids  me  in  my  weakness  kneel 

Archduchess  Anne,  to  you. 

Now  you  can  see  that  every  word  here  innocently  uttered 
would  seem  to  the  Archduchess  very  cunning  or  very  stupid. 
Did  the  young  wife  know  the  secret,  then  every  word  would 
be  like  turning  a  knife  in  the  heart  of  the  Archduchess. 
And  if  she  did  not  know,  how  horribly  stupid  she  must  be 
to  say  what  seems  so  wicked.  Therefore  she  is  driven  away 
at  once.  But  after  she  has  gone,  the  Archduchess  has  to 
think  about  what  was  said,  and  she  feels  that  after  all  the 
young  wife  really  did  the  very  best  thing  that  a  woman 
could  have  done  to  save  her  husband. 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       143 

Yet  it  is  too  late  to  save  him.  Presently  the  news  comes 
that  he  has  been  shot.  And  the  result  is  a  civil  war;  for 
the  party  of  Count  Louis  tries  to  avenge  him.  There  is 
war  also  in  the  heart  of  the  sovereign.  How  unutterably 
she  hates  her  faithful  old  general;  yet  she  must  trust  to 
him,  for  the  kingdom  is  in  danger.  Pain  and  sorrow  make 
Anne  look  already  like  an  old  woman.  When  the  war  is 
over  she  treats  her  general  so  ill  that  he  is  obliged  to  leave 
the  country.  By  one  fault,  how  much  unhappiness  and 
destruction  comes  to  pass — revolution,  civil  war,  and  the 
ruin  of  many  lives !  And  the  poem  ends  with  the  quatrain 
often  quoted  in  other  connections  than  the  present: 

And  she  that  helped  to  slay,  yet  bade 

To  spare  the  fated  man, 
Great  were  her  errors,  but  she  had 

Great  heart,  Archduchess  Anne. 

Of  course  there  is  just  a  little  bit  of  cruel  irony  in  the 
statement,  for  it  obliges  us  to  ask  the  question  whether  a 
great  heart  can  compensate  for  much  foolishness,  whether 
affection  can  excuse  the  ruin  of  a  government.  I  think  that 
the  poet  here  is  quietly  opposing  the  moral  of  the  beautiful 
old  Bible  story,  about  the  woman  forgiven  "because  she 
loved  much" — quia  multum  amavit.  One  would  say  that 
a  person  holding  the  position  of  supreme  ruler  cannot  be 
forgiven  simply  because  she  loved  much,  although  we  may 
pity  her  with  all  our  hearts. 

Pity  is  not  a  virtue  with  Meredith.  He  reminds  us  often 
of  the  old  Jesuit  doctrine,  that  pity  is  akin  to  concupiscence. 
For  example,  Meredith  takes  a  ground  strongly  opposed  to 
all  romantic  precedents  when  he  treats  of  the  question  of 
adultery.  From  the  time  of  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  the 
custom  of  poets  to  represent  unhappy  wives  secretly  in  love 
with  strangers,  or  to  paint  the  tragedies  arising  from  the 
consequence  of  sexual  jealousy.  Even  in  all  the  versions 
of  the  story  of  King  Arthur,  our  sympathies  are  invoked  on 


144   THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

behalf  of  illegitimate  love, — even  in  Tennyson.     We  sym- 
pathize a  good  deal  with  Lancelot  and  with  Guinivere. 
In  Dante,  most  religious  of  the  old  poets,  we  have  a  striking 
example  of  this  appeal  to  pity  in  the  story  of  Francesca  di 
Rimini.     And   I   need  scarcely  speak   of   various   modern 
schools  of  poetry  who  have  imitated  the  poets  of  the  Middle 
Ages  in  this  respect.     Meredith  takes  the  opposite  view — 
represents  the  erring  woman  always  as  culpable,  and  praises 
the  act  of  killing  her.     He  gives  evolutional  reasons  for 
this.     For  example,  he  takes  an  old  Spanish  love  story,  and 
tells  it  over  again  in  a  new  way.     There  is  a  beautiful  young 
wife  alone  at  home.     There  is  a  terrible  rascal  of  a  husband, 
a  fellow  who  spends  all  his  time  in  drinking,  gambling, 
fighting,  and  making  love  to  other  women.     His  wife  gets 
tired  of  his  neglect  and  his  brutality  and  his  viciousness. 
If  he  does  not  love  her,  somebody  else  shall.     So  she  gets 
a  secret  lover,  while  her  husband  is  away.     This  young  man 
visits  her.     Suddenly  her  husband   returns,   and  now   we 
leave  Meredith  to  moralize  the  situation.     I  think  that  you 
will  find  it  both  new  and  interesting. 

Thundered  then  her  lord  of  thunders 
Burst  the  door,  and  flashing  sword 
Loud  disgorged  the  woman's  title, 
Condemnation  in  one  word. 

Grand  by  righteous  wrath  transfigured 
Towers  the  husband  who  provides 
In  his  person  judge  and  witness, 
Death  black  doorkeeper  besides  ! 


How  though  he  hath  squandered  Honour ! 
High  of  Honour  let  him  scold : 
Gilding  of  the  man's  possession, 
'Tis  the  woman's  coin  of  gold. 

She,  inheriting  from  many 
Bleeding  mothers  bleeding  sense, 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        145 

Feels  'twixt  her  and  sharp-fanged  nature 
Honour  first  did  plant  the  fence. 

Nature  that  so  shrieks  for  justice, 
Honour's  thirst  that  blood  will  slake, 
These  are  women's  eyelids,  roughly 
Mixed  to  write  them  saint  or  snake. 

Never  nature  cherished  women; 
She  throughout  the  sexes'  war 
Serves  as  temptress  and  betrayer, 
Favouring  man,  the  muscular. 


Hard  the  task :  your  prison  chamber 
Widens  not  for  lifted  latch 
Till  the  giant  thews  and  sinews 
Meet  their  Godlike  overmatch. 

Read  that  riddle;  scorning  pity's 
Tears,  of  cockatrices  shed ! 
When  the  heart  is  vowed  for  freedom, 
Captaincy  it  yields  to  head. 

The  point  upon  which  the  poet  here  insists  is  the  evolu- 
tional signification  of  female  virtue  and  of  all  that  relates 
to  it.  Evidently  he  does  not  believe  that  either  men  or 
women  were  very  virtuous  in  the  beginning— not  at  all; 
their  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong  had  to  be  developed 
slowly  through  great  sufferings  in  the  course  of  thousands 
of  years.  In  order  that  the  modern  woman  may  be  virtuous 
as  she  is,  millions  of  her  ancestors  must  have  suffered  the 
experience  that  teaches  the  social  worth  of  female  honour. 
And  a  woman  who  today  proves  unfaithful  to  her  marriage 
duty  is  sinning,  not  simply  against  modern  society,  but 
against  the  whole  experience,  the  whole  modern  experience, 
of  the  human  race.  This  would  make  the  fault  a  great 
one,  of  course,  but  would  not  the  fault  of  the  man  be  as 
great*?     By  what  right,  except  the  right  of  force,  can  he 


146        THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

punish  her,  if  he  himself  be  guilty  of  unfaithfulness?  I 
am  not  sure  what  answer  religion  would  give  to  these  ques- 
tions. But  Meredith  answers  immediately  and  clearly. 
The  fault  of  the  woman  is  incomparably  worse  than  the 
fault  of  the  man.  It  is  worse  in  relation  to  the  injury 
done  to  society,  to  morality,  to  progress.  Society  is  founded 
upon  the  family;  the  strength  of  society  to  defend  itself 
against  the  enemy,  to  accumulate  wealth,  and  to  find  happi- 
ness, depends  upon  the  care  and  the  love  given  to  the  chil- 
dren. It  is  in  proportion  to  the  love  and  care  given  to  the 
young  that  a  nation  becomes  strong.  Now  it  is  especially 
the  mother's  duty  to  look  after  the  interests  of  the  young. 
This  requires  no  argument.  And  a  sexual  weakness  upon 
her  part  means  an  injury  done  to  the  family  in  the  sense  of 
its  very  life.  The  whole  interest  of  society  depends  upon 
the  chastity  and  tenderness  and  moral  force  of  its  women. 
Moral  weakness  once  begun  among  the  women  of  the  people, 
the  decline  of  that  race  begins.  So  indeed  perished  the 
finest  race  that  ever  existed  in  this  world — the  old  Greek 
race. 

On  the  other  hand,  though  unchastity  on  the  part  of 
the  man  be  certainly  condemnable — from  a  purely  moral 
point  of  view  equally  condemnable — its  consequences  are 
not  fraught  with  the  same  danger  to  society,  because  they 
are  not  of  a  character  to  destroy  the  family.  Really  the 
part  of  man  in  the  great  struggle  of  life  is  the  part  of  the 
fighter.  The  all  important  thing  for  the  man  is  to  be  strong. 
If  he  can  be  morally  as  well  as  physically  strong,  so  much 
the  better  for  the  race;  but  the  all  important  thing  is  that 
he  shall  be  able  to  fight,  to  contend,  to  conquer.  It  is  not 
through  the  man  that  the  moral  progress  of  society  is  di- 
rectly effected;  it  is  through  the  woman  and  the  teaching 
of  the  young,  it  is  through  the  tenderness  and  love  of  the 
home — the  only  place  where  a  man  can  rest  from  his  con- 
stant battle  with  the  world.  It  is  only  in  his  own  home 
that  he  can  be  as  good  as  he  may  wish  to  be.     Every  good 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        147 

home  is  a  little  nursing  place  of  morality,  a  little  garden 
in  which  the  plants  of  honour  and  truth  and  courage  and 
gentleness  can  be  cultivated  until  they  are  strong  enough 
to  bear  the  frosts  and  the  cold  winds  of  the  great  outside 
world.     In  one  generation  home  life  may  accomplish  very 
little  for  the  improvement  of  a  race,  but  in  the  course  of 
thousands  of  years  it  accomplishes  everything.     If  men  are 
kinder  and  wiser  and  better  today  than  they  were  thou- 
sands of  years  ago,  it  is  because  of  the  virtues  which  have 
been  cultivated  in  the  family.     Had  the  home  of  human 
history  been  a  struggle  between  men  only,  the  result  would 
have  been  very  different  indeed,  for  competition  and  battle 
cultivate  only  the  hard  and  fierce  and  cunning  side  of  char- 
acter.    Taking  all  these  facts  together,  the  poet  tells  us 
very  plainly  that  adultery  is  something  which  should  never 
be  forgiven  in  a  woman,  however  it  might  be  forgiven  in 
a  man,  because  the  fault  against  human  society  is  too  great. 
And  therefore  he  has  written  this  poem  especially  to  con- 
demn those  old  romances  in  which  illegitimate  affection  was 
the  theme — in  which,  also,  every  effort  was  made  to  excite 
the  sympathy  of  the  reader  with  the  sin  of  the  woman. 
No  sympathy  has  George  Meredith;  on  the  contrary,  he 
praises  the  man  who  kills,  in  the  line  where  he  speaks  of 
the  sword — where  he  says  that  the  good  steel  of  the  sword 
that  killed  was  what  every  man  ought  to  be — hard  and 
penetrating,  hard  and  terrible  to  deal  with  social  wrong. 
It  is  very  curious  to  compare  this  stern  view  of  life  with 
the  tenderness  of  Michelet,  in  his  books  entitled  "L' Amour" 
and  "Les  Femmes."     Michelet  actually  says  that  in  many 
cases  the  woman  should  be  forgiven.     The  two  opposing 
kinds  of  views  thus  expressed  by  two  great  men  of  different 
races  do  really  suggest  something  of  the  difference  of  char- 
acter in  the  races.     Both  men  are  liberal   thinkers,  both 
men  studied  the  new  philosophy.     Yet  how  very  antagonis- 
tic their  teachings. 

I  do  not  wish  to  give  you  too  much  of  the  moral  side  of 


148       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Meredith  at  one  time,  for  fear  that  it  should  become  tire- 
some. So  before  we  take  up  another  philosophical  poem, 
I  should  like  to  speak  of  a  poem  which  is  only  emotional  and 
descriptive — a  tremendous  poem,  and  certainly  the  greatest 
thing  in  verse  that  Meredith  has  composed.  I  mean  "The 
Nuptials  of  Attila."  In  some  parts  it  is  very  hard  reading. 
In  other  parts  it  is  unmatched  in  the  splendour  and  strength 
of  its  verse. 

First  we  must  say  a  few  words  about  the  subject  chosen. 
Doubtless  you  remember  the  apparition  of  Attila  in  Roman 
history.  You  have  read  how  he  came  from  the  East  with 
his  tempestuous  cavalry  and  threatened  to  destroy  the  whole 
of  Western  civilization.  During  his  brief  career  Attila 
probably  wielded  the  greatest  power  that  has  ever  been 
united  in  the  hands  of  one  man.  He  controlled  a  larger 
portion  of  the  earth's  surface  than  that  today  controlled  by 
the  Russians,  and  he  might  have  realized  his  dream  of 
subduing  all  the  West  of  Europe,  had  it  not  been  for  one 
act  of  folly.  That  was  his  marriage  to  a  young  girl  called 
Ildico,  whom  he  demanded  from  her  parents  against  her 
will.  On  the  night  of  the  wedding  there  was  great  drink- 
ing and  feasting,  and  when  the  King  retired  to  the  bridal 
chamber  he  had  probably  drunk  to  excess.  At  all  events 
he  died  suddenly  in  the  night,  through  the  bursting  of  a 
blood-vessel;  and  his  death  saved  Western  civilization. 
There  was  not  another  leader  in  the  vast  army  capable  of 
keeping  it  together.  The  host  broke  up.  The  chiefs  re- 
turned to  their  several  countries,  and  the  great  empire  of 
Attila  melted  away  almost  as  suddenly  as  frost  disappears 
in  the  morning  sun.  What  became  of  Ildico  nobody  knows. 
It  is  the  scene  of  the  wedding  night,  and  the  scene  of  the 
morning  following,  that  the  poet  describes. 

First  we  have  a  few  lines  describing  the  power  of  Attila 
and  the  hunger  of  his  army  for  more  war: 

Flat  as  to  an  eagle's  eye, 
Earth  hung  under  Attila, 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        149 

Sign  for  carnage  gave  he  none. 
In  the  peace  of  his  disdain, 
Sun  and  rain,  and  rain  and  sun, 
Cherished  men  to  wax  again, 
Crawl,  and  in  their  manner  die, 
On  his  people  stood  a  frost. 
Like  the  charger  cut  in  stone, 
Rearing  stiff,  the  warrior  host, 
Which  had  life  from  him  alone, 
Craved  the  trumpets'  eager  note, 
As  the  bridled  earth  the  Spring. 
Rusty  was  the  trumpet's  throat. 
He  let  chief  and  prophet  rave ; 
Venturous  earth  around  him  string 
hreads  of  grass  and  slender  rye, 
Wave  them,  and  untrampled  wave. 
O  for  the  time  when  God  did  cry, 
Eye  and  have,  my  Attila. 

You  must  remember  that  Attila  was  called  the  Scourge 
of  God.  So  terrible  was  the  destruction  that  he  wrought, 
that  the  Western  world  of  the  fifth  century  thought  that 
he  had  been  sent  by  God  to  destroy  them  as  a  punishment 
for  sin.  He  himself  accepted  this  name,  and  also  called 
himself  the  Hammer  of  the  World.  His  own  words,  trans- 
lated into  Latin,  are  said  to  have  been  "Stella  cadit,  tellus 
fremit,  en  ego  Malleus  Orbis"  (the  star  falls,  the  earth 
shudders;  lo!  I  am  the  hammer  of  the  world.)  But  why 
this  peace"?     Why  does  not  Attila  continue  to  destroy"? 

Scorn  of  conquest  filled  like  sleep 
Him  that  drank  of  havoc  deep 
When  the  Green  Cat  pawed  the  globe, 
When  his  horsemen  from  his  bow 
Shot  in  sheaves. 

This  scorn  of  conquest  was  only  induced  by  Attila's  sud- 
den love  for  a  woman.  Perhaps  the  girl  Ildico  would 
rather  have  died  than  been  given  to  Attila;  but  she  had  to 
obey  the  will  and  words  of  the  master,  and  there  was  no 


150       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

opportunity  given  her  to  express  her  likes  or  dislikes — no 
opportunity  even  to  kill  herself,  for  she  was  well  watched. 
White  as  death  she  appeared  in  her  wedding  robes  upon 
the  night  of  her  awful  marriage,  and  the  wedding  guests 
did  not  like  to  see  her  looking  so  white.  Why  should  she 
not  have  been  glad?  Why  should  she  not  have  blushed 
as  a  bride  blushes'?  Some  said  that  she  loved  another 
man;  some  said  that  she  was  frightened;  but  nobody  knew 
and  nobody  was  pleased,  and  the  wedding  ceremony  went 
on.  It  was  a  strange  banquet  that  she  had  to  attend,  for 
these  terrible  men  lived  upon  horse-back,  drank  upon  horse- 
back, ate  upon  horse-back.  The  wedding  guests  entered  the 
hall  in  all  the  panoply  of  war,  all  mounted  upon  their 
battle  steeds — not  to  sit  down,  but  to  ride  furiously  round 
the  table. 

Round  the  banquet-table's  load 
Scores  of  iron  horsemen  rode ; 
Chosen  warriors,  keen  and  hard ; 
Grain  of  threshing  battle-dints; 
Attila's  fierce  body-guard, 
Smelling  war  like  fire  in  flints. 
Grant  them  peace  be  fugitive ! 
Iron-capped  and  iron-heeled 
Each  against  his  fellow's  shield 
Smote  the  spear-head,  shouting,  Live 

Attila,  my  Attila, 
Eagle,  eagle  of  our  breed, 
Eagle,  beak  the  lamb  and  feed! 
Have  her,  and  unleash  us !  live ! 

Attila,  my  Attila. 

Now  to  understand  how  fearful  a  scene  this  must  have 
appeared  to  the  bride,  you  must  understand  that  Ildico  was 
a  German  girl  of  noble  family  representing  the  highest  re- 
finement and  delicacy  of  the  old  civilization.  To  have 
given  her  to  these  savage  people  was,  of  course,  a  monstrous 
cruelty.     She  did  not  enjoy  the  wonderful  displays  of  power 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       151 

and  barbaric  luxury  about  her;  she  must  have  felt  as  one 
seated  alone  in  the  midst  of  an  earth-quake. 

Fair  she  seemed,  surpassingly; 
Soft,  yet  vivid  as  the  stream 
Danube  rolls  in  the  moonbeam 
Through  rock  barriers ; — but  she  smiled 
Never,  she  sat  cold  as  salt. 
Open-mouthed  as  a  young  child 
Wondering  with  a  mind  at  fault. 
Make  the  bed  for  Attila ! 

Under  the  thin  hoop  of  gold 
Whence  in  waves  her  hair  outrolled, 
'Twixt  her  brows  the  women  saw 
Shadows  of  a  vulture's  claw 
Gript  in  flight ;  strange  knots  that  sped 
Closing  and  dissolving  aye; 
Such  as  wicked  dreams  betray 
When  pale  dawn  creeps  o'er  the  bed. 
They  might  show  the  common  pang 
Known  to  virgins,  in  whom  dread 
Hunts  their  bliss  like  famished  hounds ; — 
While  the  chiefs  with  roaring  rounds 
Tossed  her  to  her  lord  and  sang 
Praise  of  him  whose  hand  was  large, 
Cheers  for  beauty,  brought  to  yield, 
Chirrups  of  the  trot  afield, 
Hurrahs  of  the  battle  charge. 

Here  we  suffer  with  her,  so  plainly  does  the  figure  of  the 
girl  appear  before  us,  silent  and  white  with  little  shadows 
of  pain  coming  and  going  upon  her  young  forehead,  while 
all  about  her  shakes  the  ground  under  the  hoofs  of  the 
battle-horses,  under  the  thunder  roar  of  the  songs  and  the 
clashing  of  steel  on  steel.  These  roaring  horsemen  are  sing- 
ing of  other  things  than  the  past  and  the  present;  they  are 
clamouring  for  the  future,  for  more  war,  more  slaughter, 
more  destruction;  they  are  shouting  that  even  their  horses 
are  hungry  for  war. 


152       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Whisper  it  (the  war  signal),  you  sound  a  horn 
To  the  grey  beast  in  the  stall ! 
Yea,  he  whinnies  at  a  nod. 
O,  for  sound  of  the  trumpet  notes ! 
O,  for  the  time  when  thunder-shod, 
He  that  scarce  can  munch  his  oats, 
Hung  on  the  peaks,  brooded  aloof, 
Champed  the  grain  of  the  wrath  of  God 
Pressed  a  cloud  on  the  covering  roof, 
Snorted  out  of  the  blackness  fire ! 
Scarlet  broke  the  sky,  and  down, 
Hammering  West  with  print  of  his  hoof 
He  burst  out  of  the  bosom  of  ire, 
Sharp  as  eyelight  under  thy  frown, 
Attila,  my  Attila. 

Ravaged  cities  rolling  smoke 
Thick  on  cornfields  dry  and  black 
Wave  his  banners,  bear  his  yoke. 
Track  the  lightning,  and  you  track 
Attila.     They  moan :  'tis  he  ! 
Bleed:  'tis  he.     Beneath  his  foot 
Leagues  are  deserts  charred  and  mute, 
Where  he  passed,  there  passed  a  sea ! 
Attila,  my  Attila ! 

The  splendid  and  terrible  description  of  the  war  horse, 
the  Tartar  horse,  descending  over  the  mountains  into  Eu- 
rope, not  frightened  by  things  of  flesh  and  bone,  but  like 
a  thunder-cloud  descending  upon  the  cities  below — reminds 
one  of  the  description  of  Death  in  the  Apocalypse — "I 
saw  a  pale  horse;  and  he  that  sat  upon  him  was  called 
Death,  and  all  hell  followed  after  him."  In  the  fifth  cen- 
tury this  scriptural  text  was  not  forgotten ;  Attila  was  often 
compared,  with  very  good  reason,  to  the  rider  of  the  pale 
horse.  Where  he  conquered,  there  was  nothing  left;  the 
ground  became  a  desert,  a  waste  of  death,  dry  like  the  bed 
of  a  vanished  sea.  It  is  for  another  devastation,  such 
another  ride,  that  the  warriors  are  clamouring  at  the  wedding 
feast.     But  suddenly  these  men  observe  that  Ildico  never 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        153 

smiles,  that  she  is  terribly  white  like  a  ghost,  and  they  do  not 
like  this. 

"Who  breathed  on  the  king  cold  breath?" 
Said  a  voice  amid  the  host — 
"He  is  Death  that  weds  a  ghost, 
Else  a  ghost  that  weds  with  Death?" 

The  barbarian  idea  of  beauty  is  the  red- faced,  full-fleshed 
woman.  They  see  no  beauty  in  the  fair,  pale  girl;  she 
seems  to  them  like  a  phantom.  But  Attila  only  laughs  at 
the  ominous  exclamation;  he  knows  that  she  is  beautiful, 
and  he  orders  her  to  fulfil  her  part  of  the  wedding  ceremony 
by  pledging  the  guests  in  a  cup  of  wine. 

Silent  Ildico  stood  up. 
King  and  chief  to  pledge  her  well 
Shocked  sword  sword  and  cup  on  cup, 
Clamouring  like  a  brazen  bell. 
Silent  stepped  the  queenly  slave. 
Fair,  by  heaven !     She  was  to  meet 
On  a  midnight  near  a  grave, 
Flapping  wide  the  winding  sheet. 

The  last  three  lines  of  course  are  ironical — they  represent 
the  criticism  of  the  warriors.  Perhaps  one  may  have  said, 
"How  beautiful  she  is!  How  fair."  "Fair"  !  observes  an- 
other, "she  might  seem  beautiful  in  a  graveyard  at  night, 
wrapped  in  a  white  shroud !"  To  the  speaker,  such  beauty 
as  that  is  the  beauty  of  the  dead ;  there  is  something  sinister 
about  it.  He  is  not  all  wrong;  for  in  a  little  while  the 
mightiest  king  in  the  world  will  die  in  the  woman's  arms. 
It  is  time  for  the  bride  to  go  to  the  bridal  chamber;  see 
how  the  women  bow  down  to  her  as  she  passes  by,  not 
because  they  love  her,  but  because  she  has  become  their 


queen ! 


Death  and  she  walked  through  the  crowd, 
Out  beyond  the  flush  of  light. 
Ceremonious  women  bowed, 


154       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Following  her;  'twas  middle  night. 
Attila  remained     .... 

He  remains,  as  the  master  of  the  feast,  to  speak  a  few 
last  words  to  his  faithful  chiefs,  but  even  while  talking 
to  them  he  feels  impatient  to  visit  his  bride,  not  knowing 
that  she  is  Death. 

.     as  a  corse 
Gathers  vultures,  in  his  brain 
Images  of  her  eyes  and  kiss 
Plucked  at  the  limbs  that  could  remain 
Loitering  nigh  the  doors  of  bliss. 
Make  the  bed  for  Attila ! 

A  more  terrible  comparison  could  not  have  been  used 
than  this  of  the  dead  body  attracting  vultures.  But  the 
warriors  want  to  talk  to  him  a  little  longer;  they  want  a 
promise  of  war;  they  want  to  feel  sure  that,  after  this 
wedding,  the  King  will  lead  them  again  to  battle.  They 
want  to  capture  and  sack  Rome.  And  one  of  them  cries 
out  to  the  King  in  Latin,  "Lead  us  to  Rome !"  He  answers, 
he  pledges  them  in  wine,  he  promises  that  they  shall  have 
Rome  to  sack  and  burn ;  and  they  are  happy — they  bid  him 
farewell  with  roars  of  joy.  In  the  morning  he  will  lead 
them  to  Rome,  that  is  enough. 

In  the  morning  what  a  tumult  is  in  the  camp,  myriads 
and  myriads  of  squadrons  of  cavalry,  assembling  for  battle, 
chanting,  cheering,  roaring  in  the  gladness  of  their  expecta- 
tion !  But  in  the  pavilion  of  Attila  all  is  still  silent.  The 
chiefs  know  that  their  king  is  seldom  late  in  rising;  they 
are  surprised  that  he  does  not  appear.  They  make  jests 
about  the  charm  of  his  new  bride,  but  they  do  not  dare 
to  call  him,  not  for  another  hour,  two  hours,  three  hours, 
not  until  midday.  At  midday  the  chiefs  lose  patience,  but 
still  all  is  silent.  At  last,  and  only  in  the  evening,  after 
much  calling  in  vain,  they  break  in  the  door. 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        155 

'Tis  the  room  where  thunder  sleeps. 
Frenzy,  as  a  wave  to  shore 
Surging,  burst  the  silent  door 
And  drew  back  to  awful  deeps, 
Breath  beaten  out,  foam-white.     Anew 
Howled  and  pressed  the  ghastly  crew, 
Like  storm  waters  over  rocks. 

Attila,  my  Attila. 
One  long  shaft  of  sunset  red 
Laid  a  finger  in  the  bed — 
Square  along  the  couch  and  stark, 
Like  the  sea-rejected  thing, 
Sea-sucked  white,  behold  their  king! 

Attila,  my  Attila ! 

The  King  is  dead!  The  warriors  cannot  believe  it,  do 
not  want  to  believe.  They  see,  and  are  struck  with  horror 
also  because  of  the  incalculable  consequence  of  his  death. 
But  certainly  he  is  dead.  The  red  light  of  the  setting  sun 
illuminates  his  bloodless  body  lying  in  a  pool  of  blood,  for 
an  artery  burst.     But  what  has  become  of  Ildico— the  wife*? 

Name  us  that, 
Huddled  in  the  corner  dark, 
Humped  and  grinning  like  a  cat, 
Teeth  for  lips  ! — 'tis  she  !  she  stares, 
Glittering  through  her  bristling  hairs. 

There  is  something  there,  in  a  dark  corner  of  the  room — 
something  crouching  like  an  animal,  like  a  terrified  cat, 
showing  its  teeth,  raising  its  back,  as  in  the  presence  of 
an  attacking  dog.  Is  it  an  animal?  It  is  a  woman,  with 
her  hair  hanging  down  loose  over  her  face,  a  woman,  laugh- 
ing horribly,  because  she  is  mad.  They  can  see  her  eyes 
and  her  teeth  glittering  through  her  long  hair.  Did  she 
kill  him?  Some  think  she  did;  others  know  that  she  did 
not.     Some  wish  to  kill  her;  cooler  heads  have  resolved  to 

defend  her. 

"Rend  her !     Pierce  her  to  the  hilt 
She  is  murder — have  her  out !" 


156       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

"What! — this  little  fist,  as  big 
As  the  southern  summer  fig ! 
She  is  madness,  none  may  doubt." 
"Death,  who  dares  deny  her  guilt!" 
"Death,  who  says  his  blood  she  spilt!" 

•  ••••■ 

Each  at  each,  a  crouching  beast, 
Glared  and  quivered  for  the  word. 
Each  at  each,  and  all  on  that, 
Humped  and  grinning  like  a  cat. 
Head  bound  with  its  bridal  wreath. 

•  ••••• 

"Death,  who  dares  deny  her  guilt !" 
"Death,  who  says  his  blood  she  spilt! 
Traitor  he  who  stands  between !" 
"Swift  to  hell,  who  harms  the  Queen !" 
She,  the  wild,  contention's  cause, 
Combed  her  hair  with  quiet  paws. 
Make  the  bed  for  Attila ! 

Notice  the  horror  of  the  effect  caused  by  the  use  of  certain 
simple  words  in  these  verses.  The  beautiful  Ildico  is  no 
longer  spoken  of  as  a  woman,  but  as  an  insane  animal  or  a 
thing.  First  we  notice  that  "it"  and  "its"  have  been  sub- 
stituted for  "she"  and  "hers"  or  "her";  then  we  have  the 
word  "paws,"  making  a  very  horrible  impression.  The 
woman  is  so  mad  that  she  knows  nothing  of  her  danger, 
knows  nothing  of  what  has  happened;  through  some  old 
habit  of  womanly  instinct,  she  tries  to  arrange  her  poor 
tossed  hair,  but  with  her  fingers,  as  a  cat  combs  itself  with 
its  paws. 

Then  begins  the  mighty  breaking  of  that  tremendous 
army.  First  Attila  must  be  buried;  and,  according  to  cus- 
tom, no  one  must  know  where  the  King  is  buried.  A  party 
of  slaves  are  ordered  to  make  the  grave;  when  they  have 
made  it,  they  are  killed  and  buried,  in  order  that  none  of 
them  may  be  able  to  say  to  strangers  where  the  corpse  of 
Attila  reposes.  It  is  not  impossible,  it  is  even  probable  that 
Ildico  was  killed  and  buried  with  her  king,  for  the  bar- 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH        157 

barians  were  accustomed  to  slaughter  the  attendants  of  a 
dead  prince,  and  even  his  horses,  in  order  that  he  might 
have  shadowy  company  and  shadowy  steeds  in  the  other 
world.  But  we  do  not  know.  History  has  nothing  to  say 
as  to  what  became  of  Ildico.  The  poem  closes  with  a 
wonderful  description  of  the  breaking  up  of  the  army,  which 
is  likened  to  the  breaking  up  of  the  ice  in  a  great  river  at 
the  approach  of  spring. 

Lo,  upon  a  silent  hour, 
When  the  pitch  of  frost  subsides, 
Danube  with  a  shout  of  power 
Loosens  his  imprisoned  tides : 
Wide  around  the  frighted  plains 
Shake  to  hear  the  riven  chains, 
Dreadfuller  than  heaven  in  wrath  : 
As  he  makes  himself  a  path : 
High  leaps  the  ice-cracks,  towering  pile 
Floes  to  bergs,  and  giant  peers 
Wrestle  on  a  drifted  isle; 
Island  on  ice  island  rears, 
Dissolution  battles  fast; 
Big  the  senseless  Titans  loom, 
Through  a  mist  of  common  doom 
Striving  which  shall  die  the  last ; 
Till  a  gentle-breathing  morn 
Frees  the  stream  from  bank  to  bank, 
So  the  Empire  built  of  scorn, 
Agonized,  dissolved,  and  sank. 
Of  the  queen  no  more  was  told 
Than  of  leaf  on  Danube  rolled. 
Make  the  bed  for  Attila ! 

I  have  said  that  this  poem  is  emotional  rather  than 
didactic ;  yet  there  is  a  moral  suggestion  in  it,  the  suggestion 
of  what  one  foolish  indulgence  in  lust  may  cause.  For  in 
the  case  of  Attila,  who  had  already  scores  and  scores  of 
wives,  the  marriage  with  Ildico  was  a  mere  piece  of  brutal 
indulgence  and  cruelty,  and  it  proved  his  death.  Then 
again,  of  course,  it  was  a  good  thing  for  the  world  that 


158       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Attila  died  when  he  did.  It  would  seem  as  if  nature  takes 
very  good  care  that  men  who  are  only  brutal  and  cunning 
shall  not  be  allowed  to  rule  human  life  for  a  great  length 
of  time.  Their  own  passions  or  their  own  follies  eventually 
destroy  them. 

There  is  yet  another  suggestion  in  the  poem,  which  Mere- 
dith is  very  fond  of  making,  both  in  his  novels  and  in  his 
verse.  He  thinks  that  an  old  man  should  never  marry  a 
young  woman,  no  matter  how  great  the  merit  of  the  old 
man  may  be.  Here  there  will  be  many  to  disagree  with 
Meredith,  and  to  quote  such  cases  as  that  of  the  great  French 
engineer,  De  Lesseps,  who  married  only  when  he  was  more 
than  sixty  years  old,  and  thereafter  raised  a  very  numerous 
family  of  remarkably  fine  children.  But  in  a  general  way, 
Meredith  is  probably  right.  He  expounds  his  ideas  very 
clearly  in  a  little  poem  called  "The  Last  Contention."  In 
this  "last  contention"  the  poet  addresses  an  old  man  who 
wants  to  marry  a  young  girl.  He  represents  the  mind  of 
the  man  as  that  of  a  captain,  directing  a  ship,  and  the  ship 
is  the  body,  the  constitution,  the  physical  part  of  the  in- 
dividual. With  this  explanation  we  may  quote  a  few  verses 
of  the  poem.  It  is  cruel ;  but  it  is  very  moral  and  perhaps 
very  just. 

Young  captain  of  a  crazy  bark! 
O  tameless  heart  in  battered  frame ! 
Thy  sailing  orders  have  a  mark, 
And  hers  is  not  the  name. 

For  action  all  thine  iron  clanks 
In  cravings  for  a  splendid  prize; 
Again  to  race  or  bump  thy  planks 
With  any  flag  that  flies. 

•  •  •  •  • 

Admires  thee  Nature  with  much  pride; 
She  clasps  thee  for  a  gift  of  morn, 
Till  thou  art  set  against  the  tide, 
And  then  beware  her  scorn. 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       159 

This  lady  of  the  luting  tongue, 
The  flash  in  darkness,  billow's  grace — 
For  thee  the  worship, — for  the  young 
In  muscle  the  embrace. 

Soar  on  thy  manhood  clear  for  those 
Whose  toothless  Winter  claws  at  May, 
And  take  her  as  the  vein  of  rose 
Athwart  an  evening  grey. 

I  have  left  out  the  most  cruel  verses;  but  these  are  sig- 
nificant enough.  The  person  addressed  might  be  one  of 
those  old  generals  or  admirals  who  figure  so  often  in  the 
novels  of  Meredith,  some  brave  old  man,  with  a  great  repu- 
tation for  courage  and  skill  and  the  arts  of  courtesy.  Such 
men  may  be  able  to  win  a  young  wife,  rather  by  help  of 
their  wealth,  social  position,  and  reputation  than  by  real 
love.  The  poet  says  that  one  should  not  try  to  do  this. 
And  he  says  that  the  man  who  does  it,  or  wishes  to  do  it,  is 
like  a  skilful  captain  who  trusts  too  much  to  his  seamanship, 
forgetting  that  his  vessel  is  in  a  state  of  decay.  The  heart 
may  be  young  enough,  but  that  is  not  sufficient.  Nature 
seems  to  love  and  favour  grand  old  men,  but  not  if  they 
do  what  is  not  according  to  Nature's  laws.  Therefore  if 
marriages  between  old  and  young  prove  to  be  unfortunate, 
the  fault  is  in  most  cases  with  the  old.  The  old  man  may 
admire,  may  reverence  a  beautiful  young  person;  but  only 
as  we  admire  a  work  of  art,  at  a  distance,  or  beautiful 
colours  in  the  sunset  sky.  Let  me  call  your  attention  to  the 
use  of  the  phrases  "flash  in  darkness"  and  "billow's  grace." 
The  Greeks  said  that  life  was  like  a  flash  between  two 
darknesses — the  darkness  of  the  mystery  out  of  which  we 
come,  and  the  darkness  of  the  mystery  into  which  we  go. 
It  is  a  very  beautiful  and  a  very  profound  comparison; 
the  poet  here  uses  it  especially  in  reference  to  the  beautiful 
period  of  youth,  which  is  short.  He  suggests  that  an  old 
man  should  have  wisdom  enough  to  think  of  youth  and 


160       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

of  beauty  as  passing  illusions.  "Billow's  grace"  is  a  very 
striking  simile.  The  charm  of  movement  in  a  graceful  per- 
son is  something  which  no  art  can  reproduce.  It  is  beauty 
of  motion,  and  the  instant  that  the  motion  stops,  the  charm 
is  not.  The  beauty  of  water,  flowing  water,  is  of  this 
kind.  Even  while  you  admire  the  motion  of  a  wave,  gilded 
by  the  sunlight,  the  wave  has  passed. 

And  now  we  shall  turn  to  a  very  important  division  of 
Meredith's  poems — those  dealing  with  the  philosophy  of 
life  as  a  whole.  On  this  subject  most  of  the  great  English 
poets  are  apt  to  be  a  little  didactic  in  the  religious  sense. 
Meredith  is  also  didactic — but  not  in  a  religious  sense.  One 
peculiarity  of  his  work  is  the  total  absence  of  theological 
doctrine  of  any  kind.  He  talks  to  you  about  the  laws  of 
the  universe,  the  laws  of  life,  the  laws  of  nature — never 
about  the  laws  of  any  God  or  any  religion.  When  he 
does  mention  the  word  God  or  the  word  religion,  it  is 
always  in  such  a  way  that  you  feel  he  considers  such  things 
only  as  symbols — useful  symbols,  perhaps,  but  symbols 
only.  I  shall  speak  only  of  two  remarkable  poems  of  this 
kind.  The  first,  called  "The  Woods  of  Westermain,"  con- 
siders especially  the  struggle  of  human  life,  and  the  duties 
of  man  in  that  struggle.  The  other  poem,  entitled  "Earth 
and  Man,"  treats  more  largely  of  the  problem  of  the  uni- 
verse— the  great  mystery  of  the  questions,  Where  do  we 
come  from'?  Why  do  we  exist?  Whither  are  we  going? 
Let  us  first  take  the  "Woods  of  Westermain." 

Why  the  poem  should  be  called  by  the  name  of  "The 
Woods  of  Westermain,"  I  am  not  able  to  tell  you;  but  I 
think  that  the  name  contains  a  suggestion  about  occidental 
life  as  contrasted  with  oriental  life.  However,  I  am  not 
sure,  but,  at  all  events,  the  subject  of  the  poem  is  not  a 
real  forest,  but  the  forest  of  human  existence,  the  place  in 
which  the  struggle  of  life  goes  on — therefore,  in  the  true 
sense,  Nature. 

The  great  teaching  of  this  poem  is  that  Nature  has  given 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       161 

us  powers  and  senses  not  for  pleasure,  not  for  the  obtaining 
of  selfish  enjoyment,  but  for  battle.  All  that  we  know  at 
present  about  the  reason  of  life  is  summed  up  in  that  fact. 
The  great  natural  duty  of  every  man  is  to  fight,  morally 
and  physically,  and  though  he  has  a  perfect  right  to  enjoy 
himself,  to  seek  pleasure  at  proper  times  and  places,  he 
must  never  allow  pleasure  to  interfere  with  the  supreme 
duty  of  struggle  in  battle;  the  first  requisite,  therefore,  is 
courage,  the  first  thing  necessary  is  never  to  be  afraid.  In 
the  ancient  fairy-tales  of  Europe,  we  find  many  stories  about 
enchanted  forests,  goblin  forests.  The  knight,  the  hero  of 
the  story,  enters  a  great  wood,  which  seems  very  green  and 
pleasant  to  the  eye.  As  he  lies  down  under  a  tree,  how- 
ever, he  sees  strange  shapes  looking  at  him — shapes  of  fair- 
ies, shapes  of  demons,  shapes  of  giants.  But  he  rides  on, 
and  they  do  not  do  him  any  harm.  After  a  while  he  arrives 
safely  at  his  destination.  Quite  otherwise  in  the  case  of 
the  cowardly  knight.  When  he  finds  himself  in  the  forest 
he  becomes  afraid,  and  terrible  shapes  rise  up  about  him, 
come  close  to  him,  at  last  attack  him  and  tear  him  to  pieces. 
Now  the  forest  of  life  is  just  like  the  enchanted  forest  of 
the  old  fairy-tales.  If  you  are  afraid,  you  are  destroyed. 
If  you  are  not  afraid,  all  is  bright  and  beautiful. 

Enter  these  enchanted  woods, 

You  who  dare. 
Nothing  harms  beneath  the  leaves, 
More  than  waves  a  swimmer  cleaves. 
Toss  your  heart  up  with  the  lark, 
Float  at  peace  with  mouse  and  worm, 

Fair  you  fare. 
Only  at  a  dread  of  dark 
Quaver, — and  they  quit  their  form: 
Thousand  eyeballs  under  hoods 

Have  you  by  the  hair. 
Enter  these  enchanted  woods, 

You  who  dare. 


162        THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Here  the  snake  across  your  path 
Stretches  in  his  golden  bath; 
Mossy-footed  squirrels  leap 
Soft  as  winnowing  plumes  of  sleep. 

*  •  •  •  • 

Each  has  business  of  his  own ; 
But  should  you  distrust  a  tone, 

Then  beware ! 
Shudder  all  the  haunted  roods, 
All  the  eyeballs  under  hoods 
Shroud  you  in  their  glare. 

I  am  not  sure  that  this  imagery  can  appeal  to  you  as  it 
was  intended  to  appeal  to  the  Western  reader,  because  it 
partly  depends  for  effect  upon  the  knowledge  of  the  old 
fairy-tale  pictures.  In  Western  ghost  stories  and  fairy 
stories,  goblins  and  other  phantoms  are  usually  represented 
in  long  robes  with  hoods  over  their  faces,  and  very  big, 
wicked  eyes.  That  is  why  the  poet  speaks  so  often  of  the 
hoods  and  the  eyeballs.  The  meaning  is  that,  in  this  world, 
just  so  soon  as  you  begin  to  suspect  and  to  be  afraid,  every- 
thing really  becomes  to  you  terrible — even  as  in  the  old 
fairy-tales  a  tree  was  only  a  tree  to  the  sight  of  a  brave  man, 
but  to  the  cowardly  man  its  roots  became  feet  and  its 
branches  horrible  arms  and  claws,  and  its  crest  a  goblin  face. 

Then  follows  a  wonderful  description  of  wood  life — the 
life  of  insect,  reptile,  bird  and  little  animals — the  poet 
taking  care  to  show  how  each  and  all  of  these  represent 
something  of  human  life  and  moral  truth.  But  it  is  one  of 
the  most  difficult  poems  in  English  literature  to  read;  and 
I  shall  not  try  to  quote  much  from  it.  Enough  to  say  that 
the  same  lesson  is  taught  all  the  way  through  the  poem, 
the  lesson  of  what  Nature  means.  She  must  not  be  thought 
of  as  a  cruel  Sphinx:  she  is  cruel  only  if  you  imagine  her 
to  be  cruel.  Nature  will  always  be  what  you  think  her  to 
be.  Think  of  her  as  beautiful  and  good;  then  she  will  be 
good  and  beautiful  for  you.     Think  of  her  as  cruel;  then 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       163 

she  will  be  cruel  to  you.  Do  not  think  of  her  as  pleasure; 
if  you  do,  she  will  give  you  pleasure,  but  she  will  destroy 
you  at  the  same  time.  She  is  the  spirit  and  law  of  Eternal 
Struggle;  and  it  is  thus  only  that  you  should  think  of  her, 
as  a  divinity  desiring  you  to  be  brave,  active,  generous, 
ambitious.  Above  all  things,  you  must  not  hate.  Hate 
nature,  and  you  are  instantly  destroyed.  You  must  not 
allow  even  a  thought  of  hate  to  enter  your  mind. 

Hate,  the  shadow  of  a  grain, 
You  are  lost  in  Westermain; 
Earthward  swoops  a  Vulture  Sun 
Nighted  upon  carrion: 
Straightway  venomed  winecups  shout 
As  to  one  whose  eyes  are  out ; 
Flowers  along  the  reeling  floor 
Drip  henbaine  and  hellebore ; 
Beauty  of  her  tresses  shorn 
Shrieks  as  nature's  maniac ; 
Hideousness  on  hoof  and  horn 
Tumbles,  yapping   in  her   track; 
Haggard   wisdom,    stately   once, 
Leers  fantastical  and  trips. 

•  •  •  •  • 

Imp  that  dances,  imp  that  flits, 
Imp  o'  the  demon-growing  girl, 
Maddest !  whirl  with  imp  o'  the  pits 
Round  you,  and  with  them  you  whirl 
Fast,  where  pours  the  fountain  rout 
Out  of  him  whose  eyes  are  out ! 

The  foregoing  must  seem  to  you  very  difficult  verse; 
and  it  is  really  very  difficult  for  the  best  English  readers. 
But  at  the  same  time  it  is  very  powerful;  and  I  think  that 
you  ought  to  have  at  least  one  example  of  the  difficult 
side  of  Meredith.  This  is  a  picture — a  horrible  picture, 
such  as  old  artists  used  to  make  in  the  fifteenth  or  sixteenth 
century  to  illustrate  the  temptations  of  a  saint  by  devils, 
or  the  terrors  of  a  sinner  about  to  die,  and  surrounded  by 


164       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

ghastly  visions.  Really  if  you  hate  Nature,  the  universe 
will  at  once  for  you  become  what  it  seemed  to  the  super- 
stitious of  the  past  ages  and  to  the  disordered  fancies  of 
insane  fanatics.  The  very  sun  itself  will  no  longer  appear 
as  a  glorious  star,  but  as  a  creature  of  prey,  devouring  the 
dead.  Perhaps  the  poet  here  wishes  also  to  teach  us  that 
we  must  not  think  too  much  about  the  ugly  side  of  death 
as  an  appearance — the  corruption,  the  worms,  the  darkness 
of  the  grave.  To  think  about  those  things,  as  the  monks 
of  the  Middle  Ages  did,  is  to  hate  Nature.  Everything 
seems  foul  to  the  man  whose  imagination  is  foul.  Every- 
thing which  should  be  nourishing  becomes  poison,  every- 
thing which  should  seem  beautiful  becomes  hideous.  The 
reference  to  "One  whose  eyes  are  out,"  is,  you  know,  a 
reference  to  the  old  fashioned  pictures  of  death,  as  a  goblin 
skeleton,  seeing  without  eyes.  In  some  frightful  pictures 
death  was  represented  also  as  an  eyeless  corpse,  out  of  which 
all  kinds  of  goblins,  demons,  and  bad  dreams  were  swarm- 
ing, like  maggots.  Of  course  such  are  the  pictures  referred 
to  here  by  the  poet.  Believe  in  goblins  and  devils,  and  you 
will  see  them;  believe  that  all  men  are  wicked,  and  you 
will  find  them  wicked;  believe  that  Nature  is  evil,  and 
Nature  will  certainly  destroy  you,  just  as  the  demons  in 
the  mediaeval  story  tore  to  pieces  the  magician  who  had 
not  learned  the  secret  of  making  them  obey. 

Very  much  more  easy  to  understand  are  the  stanzas  upon 
"Earth  and  Man."  These  attempt  to  explain  the  real  prob- 
lem of  man's  existence.  The  poet  represents  the  earth  as  a 
person,  a  mother,  a  nurse.  But  this  mother,  this  nurse, 
this  divine  person  is  not  able  to  do  everything  for  man. 
She  can  give  him  life;  she  can  feed  him;  but  she  cannot 
help  him  otherwise,  except  upon  the  strange  condition  that 
he  helps  himself.  She  makes  him  and  embraces  him,  but 
that  is  all.  Otherwise  he  must  make  his  own  future,  his 
own  happiness  or  misery. 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       165 

For  he  is  in  the  lists 

Contentious  with  the  elements,  whose  dower 
First  sprang  him;  for  swift  vultures  to  devour 
If  he  desists. 

His  breath  of  instant  thirst 
Is  warning  of  a  creature  matched  with  strife, 
To  meet  it  as  a  bride,  or  let  fall  life 

On  life's  accursed. 

That  is,  man  in  this  world  is  like  an  athlete,  or  a  warrior 
in  the  lists — in  the  place  of  contests.  With  what  must  he 
contend4?  First  of  all,  he  must  contend  with  the  very  ele- 
ment of  nature,  with  the  very  same  forces  which  brought 
him  into  being,  or  as  the  poet  says  "sprang  him."  And 
if  he  hesitates  to  fight  with  those  forces,  then  quickly  the  vul- 
tures of  death  seize  upon  him.  The  condition  of  his  exist- 
ence is  struggle.  Even  the  first  cry  of  the  child,  the  cry 
of  thirst  for  the  mother's  milk,  signifies  that  man  is  born 
to  desire  and  to  toil  and  to  contend.  He  must  either  meet 
the  duty  of  struggle  as  gladly  as  he  would  meet  a  bride,  or 
he  must  acknowledge  himself  unfit  to  live,  and  cursed  by 
his  own  mother,  Nature.  Nature  is  not  to  be  thought  of 
as  a  mother  that  pets  her  child  and  weeps  over  its  small 
sorrows;  no,  she  is  a  good  mother,  but  very  rough,  and 
she  loves  only  the  child  that  fights  and  conquers. 

She  has  no  pity  upon  him  except  as  he  fights  and  wins. 
She  cannot  do  certain  things  for  him;  she  cannot  develop 
his  mind — he  must  do  that  for  himself.  She  makes  him 
do  it  by  pain,  by  terror,  by  punishing  him  fearfully  for 
his  mistakes.  By  the  consequence  of  mistakes  only  does 
she  teach  him.  She  urges  him  forward  by  hunger  and  by 
fear,  but  there  is  no  mercy  for  him  if  he  blunders.  I  want 
you  to  remember  that  the  poet  is  not  speaking  of  the  separate 
individual  man,  but  of  mankind  and  of  the  history  of  the 
human  race.  According  to  modern  science,  man  was  at  the 
beginning  nothing  more  than  an  animal ;  he  has  become  what 


166       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

he  is  through  knowledge  of  suffering,  and  the  poet  describes 
his  sufferings  in  the  beginning: 

By  hunger  sharply  sped 

To  grasp  at  weapons  ere  he  learns  their  use, 
In  each  new  ring  he  bears  a  giant's  thews, 
An  infant's  head. 

And  ever  that  old  task 

Of  reading  what  he  is  and  whence  he  came, 
Whither  to  go,  finds  wilder  letters  flame 
Across  her  mask. 

That  is  to  say,  man  first  is  impelled  by  hunger  to  use 
weapons,  in  order  to  kill  animals,  and  these  weapons  he  at 
first  must  use  very  clumsily.  You  must  understand  the 
word  "ring"  to  mean  an  age  or  cycle.  The  poet  wishes  to 
say  that  through  many  past  ages  in  succession,  man  had  the 
strength  of  a  giant,  but  his  brain,  his  mind,  was  feeble  and 
foolish  like  that  of  a  little  child — not  even  a  child  in  the 
common  meaning  of  the  word,  for  the  poet  uses  the  term 
"infant,"  signifying  a  child  before  it  has  yet  learned  how 
to  speak.  It  is  supposed  that  primitive  man  had  no  de- 
veloped languages.  But,  as  time  goes  on,  man  learns  how 
to  express  thought  by  speech,  and  presently  he  begins  to 
think  about  himself — to  wonder  what  he  is,  where  he  came 
from,  and  where  he  is  going.  Then  he  invents  religious 
theories  to  account  for  his  origin.  But  the  mystery  always 
remains.  There  are  ancient  stories  about  a  magical  writing. 
When  you  looked  at  this  writing,  at  first  it  seemed  to  be 
in  one  language,  and  to  have  one  meaning,  but  when  you 
looked  at  it  a  second  time,  the  letters  and  the  meaning  had 
changed,  and  every  succeeding  time  that  you  looked  at  it, 
again  it  changed.  Like  this  magical  writing  is  the  mystery 
of  Nature,  of  the  Universe;  so  the  poet  represents  Nature 
as  wearing  a  mask  upon  which  such  ever-changing  characters 
appear  in  letters  of  fire.  No  matter  how  much  we  learn 
or  theorize,  the  infinite  riddle  cannot  be  read.     And  one 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       167 

factor  of  this  terrible  riddle  is  Death.  Death  of  all  things 
most  puzzles  and  terrifies  man.  He  sometimes  suspects 
that  Nature  herself  is  Death,  and  purely  evil.  He  began 
by  worshipping  her  through  fear,  but  his  worship  did  not 
change  his  destiny  in  the  least. 

The  thing  that  shudders  most 
Within  him  is  the  burden  of  his  cry, 
Seen  of  his  dread,  she  is  to  his  blank  eye 
The  eyeless  ghost. 

•  •••••• 

Once  worshipped  Prime  of  Powers, 
She  still  was  the  implacable ;  as  a  beast 
She  struck  him  down  and  dragged  him  from  the  feast, 
She  crowned  with  flowers. 

•  •••••• 

He  may  entreat,  aspire, 
He  may  despair,  and  she  has  never  heed. 
She  drinking  his  warm  sweat  will  sooth  his  need, 
Not  his  desire. 

She  prompts  him  to  rejoice, 

Yet  scares  him  on  the  threshold  with  the  shroud. 
He  deems  her  cherishing  of  her  best-endowed 
A  wanton's  choice. 

If  man  thought  of  the  spirit  of  Nature  as  the  cruel  spirit 
of  death  and  destruction,  surely  he  had  reason  to  do  so  in 
the  time  of  his  primitive  ignorance.  Pleasure  seemed  to 
him  of  Nature — offered  to  him  by  Nature,  and  yet  to  in- 
dulge it  often  brought  upon  him  destruction.  Joy  seemed 
to  him  natural,  yet  whenever  he  most  rejoiced,  the  shadow  of 
death  would  appear  somewhere  near  him.  Always  this  Na- 
ture seemed  to  be  putting  out  temptations  to  joy  and  pleas- 
ure, only  as  a  bird  hunter  scatters  food  on  the  ground  to  at- 
tract birds  into  his  snare.  And  again  this  Nature  would 
never  listen  to  man's  prayer.  He  found  out  that  by  working 
hard  he  could  obtain  food  enough  to  live  upon;  thus  Nature 


168       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

seemed  to  allow  him  the  right  of  life,  or  as  the  poet  says, 
"to  sooth  his  need";  but  never  would  she  grant  him  his 
"desire,"  his  prayer  for  supernatural  help.  When  it  came 
to  the  matter  of  help,  he  found  out  that  he  must  help 
himself.  But  why  was  it,  again,  that  the  wicked  and  the 
cruel  were  permitted  to  succeed  and  to  become  prosperous, 
while  the  good  and  the  gentle  perished  from  the  face  of 
the  earth?  To  ancient  mankind  this  was  indeed  a  most 
terrible  problem,  a  problem  which  has  not  been  perfectly 
solved  even  at  this  day.  Was  Nature  a  wanton — that  is, 
a  wicked  woman,  preferring  the  evil  characters,  the  mur- 
derer, the  thief,  the  robber,  to  the  upright  and  just?  Such 
was  the  question  which  millions  of  men  must  have  asked 
themselves  in  the  past.  Evidently  the  poet  does  not  think 
so;  he  calls  the  successful,  "the  best  endowed."  What 
does  this  mean?  It  means  that  the  choice  of  Nature  in  her 
favours,  however  immoral  that  choice  may  seem  to  us,  is 
really  a  choice  of  the  best,  according  to  her  judgment.  You 
may  say,  if  you  like,  that  these  or  those  successful  men  are 
bad,  that  they  have  broken  all  moral  rules,  that  they  have 
sinned  against  all  the  ethics  of  society,  that  they  are  scoun- 
drels who  ought  to  be  in  prison.  But  Nature  says,  "No, 
those  are  my  best  children.  You  may  not  like  them,  and 
doubtless  they  are  not  good  to  your  thinking,  but  they  are 
very  much  more  clever  and  much  stronger  than  you.  I 
want  my  children  to  be  cunning  and  to  be  strong."  Are 
we  to  suppose,  therefore,  that  Nature  wishes  to  cultivate 
only  wicked  cunning  and  brutal  strength?  No,  but  cunning 
and  strength  are  the  foundations  upon  which  intellect  and 
moral  power  are  eventually  built.  It  is  like  the  statement 
of  Herbert  Spencer,  that  the  first  thing  necessary  for  success 
in  life  is  "to  be  a  good  animal."  If  you  can  be  both  a 
good  animal  and  a  moral  and  kind  person,  so  much  the 
better.  But  while  the  development  is  going  on,  the  chances 
always  are  that  Nature  will  favour  the  animal  man  at  the 
expense  of  the  moral  man  who  has  no  strength  and  no 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       169 

cleverness.  For  those  who  have  neither  strength  nor  cun- 
ning must  disappear  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Nature 
does  not  want  to  help  weakness;  she  prefers  strong  wicked- 
ness to  helpless  goodness.  And  if  we  reflect  upon  this,  we 
shall  find  that  the  whole  tendency  is  not  to  evil  but  to  good. 
It  is  by  considering  the  past  history  of  man  that  we  can 
learn  how  much  he  has  gained  through  this  cruel  policy  of 
nature. 

.  .  .  Thereof  he  has  found 
Firm  roadway  between   lustf ulness  and  pain ; 
Has  half  transferred  the  battle  to  his  brain, 
From  bloody  ground; 

He  will  not  read  her  good, 
Or  wise,  but  with  the  passion  Self  obscures ; 
Through  that  old   devil  of  the  thousand  lures, 
Through  that  dense  hood: 

Through    terror,    through    distrust, 
The  greed  to  touch,  to  view,  to  have,  to  live ; 
Through  all  that  makes  of  him  a  sensitive 
Abhorring  dust. 

Which  means  that,  if  we  will  really  think  about  the 
matter  from  an  evolutional  standpoint,  we  shall  find  that 
it  has  been  through  the  destruction  of  the  weak  that  man- 
kind has  become  strong.  At  first  he  knew  only  desire,  like 
an  animal;  his  wants  were  only  like  those  of  an  animal. 
But  gradually  nobler  desires  came  to  him,  because  they  were 
forced  upon  him  by  his  constant  struggle  against  death. 
He  learns  that  one  must  be  able  to  control  one's  desire  as 
well  as  to  fight  against  other  enemies.  From  the  day  man 
discovered  that  the  greatest  enemy  was  Self,  he  became  a 
higher  being,  he  was  no  longer  a  mere  animal.  When  the 
poet  speaks  of  him  as  "transferring  the  battle  to  his  brain 
from  bloody  ground,"  he  means  that  the  struggle  of  exist- 
ence today  has  become  a  battle  of  minds,  instead  of  being, 


170        THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

as  it  used  to  be,  a  trial  of  mere  physical  strength.  We  must 
every  one  of  us  fight,  but  the  fight  is  now  intellectual. 
Notwithstanding  this  progress,  we  are  still  very  stupid,  for 
we  try  to  explain  the  laws  of  the  Universe  according  to 
our  little  feeble  conceptions  of  moral  law.  Or,  as  the  poet 
says,  we  insist  on  thinking  about  Nature  "with  the  passion 
Self  obscures" — with  that  selfishness  in  our  hearts  which 
judges  everything  to  be  bad  that  gives  us  pain.  Until  we 
can  get  rid  of  that  selfishness,  we  shall  never  understand 
Nature. 

Now  the  question  is,  shall  we  ever  be  able  to  understand 
Nature?  I  shall  let  the  poet  answer  that  question  in  his 
own  way.  It  is  an  optimistic  way,  and  it  has  the  great 
merit  of  being  quite  different  from  anything  else  written 
upon  the  subject  by  any  English  poet. 

But  that  the  senses  still 
Usurp  the  station  of  their  issue  mind, 
He  would  have  burst  the  chrysalis  of  the  blind: 
As  yet  he  will ; 

As  yet  he  will,  she  prays, 

Yet   will   when   his   distempered   devil    of   Self, 
The  glutton  for  her  fruits,  the  wily  elf 
In  shifting  rays ; — 

That  captain  of  the  scorned, 
The  coveter  of  life  in  soul  and  shell, 
The  fratricide,  the  thief,  the  infidel, 
The  hoofed  and  horned; — 

He    singularly   doomed, 

To  what  he  execrates  and  writhes  to  shun — 
When  fire  has  passed  him  vapour  to  the  sun, 
And  sun  relumed. 

Here  we  might  well  imagine  that  we  were  listening  to 
a  Buddhist,  not  to  an  English  poet,  for  the  thought  is  alto- 
gether the  thought  of  an  Oriental  philosopher,  though  it 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       171 

happens  also  to  be  in  accord  with  the  philosophy  of  Western 
science.  The  lines  which  I  put  in  capital  letters  seem  to 
me  the  most  remarkable  and  the  most  profound  that  any 
Western  poet  has  yet  written  about  the  future  of  mankind. 
Let  us  loosely  paraphrase  the  verses  quoted : 

The  end  to  which  the  senses  of  man  have  been  created  is 
the  making  of  Mind.  If  man  were  not  blinded  and  de- 
ceived by  his  senses,  he  would  know  what  Nature  is,  be- 
cause the  divine  sight,  perhaps  the  infinite  vision,  would  be 
opened  to  him.  But  the  time  will  come  when  he  shall  be 
able  to  know  and  to  see. 

What  time? 

The  time  when  the  selfishness  of  man  shall  have  ceased, 
when  he  shall  no  longer  think  of  life  as  given  to  him  only 
for  the  pursuit  of  pleasure ;  when  he  shall  have  learned  that 
he  must  not  desire  to  live  too  much,  and  that  the  body  is 
only  the  shell  of  the  mind;  when  crime  and  cruelty  shall 
have  become  impossible — when  this  world  shall  have  come 
to  an  end. 

But  when  the  world  shall  have  come  to  an  end,  will  there 
still  be  man?  Yes,  in  the  poet's  faith;  for  man  is  part  of 
the  eternal,  and  the  destruction  of  the  universe  cannot  affect 
his  destiny.  It  is  not,  however,  when  this  world  shall  have 
come  to  an  end  that  man  will  know.  The  earth  will  go 
back  to  the  sun,  out  of  which  it  came,  and  the  sun  itself 
will  burn  out  into  ashes,  and  the  universe  will  disappear, 
and  there  will  thereafter  be  another  universe,  with  other 
suns  and  worlds,  and  only  then,  after  passing  through  the 
fires  of  the  sun,  perhaps  of  many  suns,  will  man  obtain  the 
supreme  knowledge.  Never  in  this  world  can  he  become 
wise  enough  and  good  enough  to  be  perfectly  happy.  But 
in  some  future  universe,  under  the  light  of  some  sun  not  yet 
existing,  he  may  become  an  almost  perfect  being. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  you  to  hear  such  a  prediction  from 
an  English  poet,  though  the  thought  of  the  poem  is  very  an- 
cient in  Indian  philosophy.     Yet  Meredith  did  not  reach 


172       THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

this  thought  through  the  study  of  any  oriental  teaching. 
He  obtained  it  from  the  evolutional  philosophy  of  the  pres- 
ent century,  adding,  indeed,  a  little  fancy  of  his  own,  but 
nothing  at  all  in  antagonism  to  the  opinions  of  science,  so 
far  as  fact  is  concerned. 

What  is  the  teaching  of  science  in  regard  to  the  future 
and  the  past  of  the  present  universe4?  It  is  that  in  the 
course  of  enormous  periods  of  time  this  universe  passes  away 
into  a  nebulous  condition,  and  out  of  that  condition  is  re- 
formed again.  Mathematically  it  has  been  calculated  that 
the  forces  regulating  the  universe  must  have  in  the  past 
fonned  the  same  kind  of  universes  millions  of  times,  and 
will  do  the  same  thing  in  the  future,  millions  of  times. 
Every  modern  astronomer  recognizes  the  studies  upon  which 
these  calculations  are  based.  It  is  certainly  curious  that 
when  science  tells  us  how  the  universe  with  its  hundreds  of 
millions  of  suns,  and  its  trillions  of  worlds,  regularly  evolves 
and  devolves  alternately — it  is  curious,  I  repeat,  that  this 
science  is  telling  us  the  very  same  thing  that  Indian  philoso- 
phers were  teaching  thousands  of  years  ago,  before  there  was 
any  science.  They  taught  that  all  worlds  appear  and  dis- 
appear by  turns  in  the  infinite  void,  and  they  compared 
these  worlds  to  the  shadows  of  the  dream  of  a  god.  When 
the  Supreme  awakens  from  his  sleep,  then  all  the  worlds 
disappear,  because  they  were  only  the  shapes  of  his  dream. 

Herbert  Spencer  would  not  go  quite  so  far  as  that.  But 
he  would  confirm  Indian  philosophy  as  to  the  apparition  and 
disparition  of  the  universes.  There  is  another  point  upon 
which  any  Western  man  of  science  would  also  confirm  the 
oriental  teaching — that  the  essence  of  life  does  not  cease  and 
cannot  cease  with  the  destruction  of  our  world.  Only  the 
form  dies.  The  forces  that  make  life  cannot  die;  they  are 
the  same  forces  that  spin  the  suns.  Remember  that  I  am 
not  talking  about  a  soul  or  a  ghost  or  anything  of  that  kind; 
I  am  saying  only  that  it  is  quite  scientific  to  believe  that  all 
the  life  which  has  been  in  this  world  will  be  again  in  some 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       173 

future  world,  lighted  by  another  sun.  Meredith  suggests 
perhaps  more  than  this — only  suggests.  Take  his  poem, 
however,  as  it  stands,  and  you  will  find  it  a  very  noble  ut- 
terance of  optimism,  inspiring  ideas  astonishingly  like  the 
ideas  of  Eastern  metaphysicians. 

I  am  going  to  conclude  this  lecture  upon  Meredith  with 
one  more  example  of  his  philosophy  of  social  life.  It  is  a 
poem  treating  especially  of  the  questions  of  love  and  mar- 
riage, and  it  shows  us  how  he  looks  at  matters  which  are 
much  closer  to  us  than  problems  about  suns  and  souls  and 
universes. 

The  name  of  the  poem  is  "The  Three  Singers  to  Young 
Blood" — that  is  to  say,  the  three  voices  of  the  world  that 
speak  to  youth.  In  order  to  understand  this  composition 
rightly,  you  must  first  know  that  in  Western  countries  gen- 
erally and  in  England  particularly,  the  most  important  ac- 
tion of  a  man's  early  life  is  marriage.  A  man's  marriage 
is  likely  to  decide,  not  only  his  future  happiness  or  misery, 
but  his  social  position,  his  success  in  his  profession,  his  ulti- 
mate place  even  in  politics,  if  he  happens  to  enter  the  service 
of  the  state.  I  am  speaking  of  marriage  among  the  upper 
classes,  the  educated  classes,  the  professional  classes. 
Among  the  working  people,  the  tradesmen  and  mechanics, 
most  of  whom  marry  quite  young,  marriage  has  not  very 
much  social  significance.  But  among  the  moneyed  classes 
it  is  all  important,  and  a  mistake  in  choosing  a  wife  may 
ruin  the  whole  career  of  the  most  gifted  and  clever  man. 
This  is  what  Meredith  has  in  mind,  when  he  speaks  of  the 
three  voices  that  address  youth.  The  first  voice,  simply 
the  voice  of  healthy  nature,  urges  the  young  man  to  seek 
happiness  by  making  a  home  for  himself.  The  second  voice 
is  that  of  society,  of  worldly  wisdom  and  calculating  selfish- 
ness. The  third  voice  is  the  voice  of  reckless  passion,  caring 
nothing  about  consequences.  Which  of  the  three  shall  the 
young  man  listen  to*?     Let  us  hear  the  first  voice. 


174        THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

As  the  birds  do,  so  do  we, 
Bill  our  mate,  and  choose  our  tree. 
Swift  to  building  work  addressed, 
Any  straw  will  help  a  nest- 
Mates  are  warm,  and  this  is  truth, 
Glad  the  young  that  come  of  youth. 
They  have  bloom  in  the  blood  and  sap 
Chilling  at  no  thunder-clap. 
Man  and  woman  on  the  thorn, 
Trust  not  Earth,  and  have  her  scorn. 
They  who  in  her  lead  confide, 
Wither  me  if  they  spread  not  wide ! 
Look  for  aid  to  little  things, 
You  will   get  them  quick  as  wings, 
Thick  as   feathers, — would  you   feed, 
Take  the  leap  that  springs  the  need. 

In  other  words,  the  advice  of  this  first  voice  is,  Do  not  be 
afraid.  Choose  your  companion  as  the  bird  does;  make  a 
home  for  yourself;  do  not  be  afraid  to  try,  simply  because 
you  have  no  money.  Do  not  wait  to  become  rich.  If  you 
know  how  to  be  contented  with  little,  you  will  find  that  you 
can  make  a  small  home  very  easily.  A  wife  makes  life  more 
comfortable,  and  the  children  of  young  parents  are  the 
strongest  and  the  happiest.  Such  children  are  healthy,  and 
they  grow  up  brave  and  energetic.  You  must  confide  in 
Nature.  Men  and  women  who  are  afraid  to  trust  to 
Nature,  because  they  happen  to  be  poor,  lose  all  chance  of 
ever  finding  real  happiness.  Nature  turns  from  them  in 
scorn.  But  those  who  trust  to  Nature — how  they  increase 
and  multiply  and  prosper!  Do  not  wait  for  somebody  to 
help  you.  Watch  for  opportunities;  and  you  will  find 
them,  quickly,  and  in  multitude.  If  you  want  anything  in 
this  world,  do  not  wait  for  it  to  come  to  you ;  spring  for  it, 
as  the  bird  springs  from  the  tree  to  seize  its  food. 

There  is  nothing  very  bad  about  this  advice,  though  it  is 
opposed  to  the  rules  of  social  success.  The  majority  of 
young  people  act  pretty  much  in  the  way  indicated,  and  it 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       175 

is  interesting  to  observe  in  this  connection  that  both  Mr. 
Galton  and  Mr.  Spencer  have  declared  that  if  it  were  re- 
quired to  act  otherwise,  the  consequences  would  be  very  un- 
fortunate for  the  nation.  It  is  not  from  cautious  and  long 
delayed  marriages  that  a  nation  multiplies;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  is  from  improvident  marriages  by  young  people. 
Yet  there  is  something  to  be  said  on  the  other  side  of  the 
question.  No  doubt  a  great  deal  of  unhappiness  might  be 
avoided  if  young  men  and  women  were  somewhat  less  rash 
than  they  now  are  about  entering  into  marriage. 

But  let  us  listen  to  the  second  voice.  Each  of  the  three 
speaks  in  exactly  the  same  number  of  lines — sixteen. 

Contemplate  the  rutted  road; 

Life  is  both  a  lure  and  goad. 

Each  to  hold  in  measure  just, 

Trample  appetite  to  dust. 

Mark  the  fool  and  wanton  spin: 

Keep  to  harness  as  a  skin. 

Ere  you  follow  Nature's  lead, 

Of  her  powers  in  you  have  heed; — 

Else,  a  shiverer,  you  will  find 

You  have  challenged  human  kind. 

Mates  are  chosen  market-wise; 

Coolest  bargainer  best  buys. 

Leap  not,  nor  let  leap  the  heart; 

Trot  your  track,   and  drag  your  cart. 

So  your  end  may  be  in  wool, 

Honoured,  and  with  manger  full. 

This  is  the  voice  of  worldly  wisdom,  of  hard  selfishness, 
and,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  of  cunning  hypocrisy;  but  it  sounds 
very  sensible  indeed,  and  thousands  of  very  successful  men 
act  upon  the  principles  here  laid  down.     Let  us  paraphrase : 

Take  a  good  look  at  the  road  of  life — see  how  rough  it  is ! 
Understand  that  there  are  two  opposite  principles  of  life; 
there  are  things  that  attract  to  danger,  and  there  are  powers 
that  compel  a  man  to  make  the  greatest  effort  of  which  his 


176       THE  TOETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

strength  is  capable.  Consider  all  pleasure  as  dangerous;  if 
you  want  to  be  safe  and  sure,  kill  your  passions,  and  master 
all  your  desires.  Observe  how  hard  foolish  people  and  sen- 
sual people  find  life.  Wrap  yourself  up  in  self-control, 
keep  always  on  your  guard  against  pleasure,  keep  on  dis- 
trust as  a  suit  of  armour — no,  rather  as  a  skin,  never  to  be 
taken  off.  Before  you  allow  yourself  to  follow  any  natural 
impulse,  remember  how  dangerous  natural  impulses  are.  Be- 
ware of  Nature!  Otherwise  you  will  soon  find  out,  with 
trembling,  that  the  whole  world  is  against  you,  that  human 
experience  is  against  you,  that  you  have  become  an  enemy 
of  society.  And  as  for  a  wife,  remember  that  you  should 
choose  a  wife  exactly  as  you  would  buy  a  horse,  or  as  you 
would  make  any  business  purchase.  In  business  bargain- 
ing, it  is  the  man  who  keeps  his  temper  the  longest  and  con- 
ceals his  feelings  the  most  cunningly,  that  gets  the  best  ar- 
ticle. Never  allow  an  impulse  to  guide  you.  Never  follow 
the  guidance  of  your  heart.  Life  is  hard,  make  up  your 
mind  to  go  steadily  forward  and  bear  your  burden,  and  if 
you  will  do  this  while  you  are  young,  you  will  become  com- 
fortably rich  when  you  get  old,  and  will  have  the  respect  of 
society  and  the  enjoyment  of  everything  good  in  this  world. 
I  have  said  that  this  advice  is  very  immoral,  although  it 
is  in  one  way  very  sensible.  I  say  that  it  is  immoral  only 
for  this  reason,  that  it  tells  people  to  act  sensibly,  not  for 
the  love  of  what  is  good  and  true,  but  merely  for  the  sake 
of  personal  advantages.  I  cannot  believe  that  a  man  is 
good  who  lives  virtuously  only  because  he  finds  virtue  a  prof- 
itable business.  All  this  is  pure  selfishness,  but  there  is  no 
doubt  that  a  great  many  successful  men  live  and  act  exactly 
according  to  these  principles.  Now  let  us  consider  the  third 
voice,  the  voice  of  mere  passion,  esthetic  passion,  which  is 
especially  strong  with  generous  minds.  It  is  not  usually  the 
dullard  nor  the  hypocrite  nor  the  egotist  who  goes  to  his  ruin 
by  following  the  impulses  of  such  a  passion  as  that  here 
described.     It  is  rather  the  man  of  the  type  of  Byron,  or  still 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       177 

more  of  the  type  of  Shelley.     It  is  against  danger  of  this 

voice  that  the  artist  and  the  poet  must  especially  be  on 

guard. 

O  the  rosy  light !  it  fleets, 

Dearer  dying  than  all  sweets. 

That  is  life ;  it  waves  and  goes ; 

Solely  in  cherished  Rose 

Palpitates — or   else    'tis    death. 

Call  it  love  with  all  thy  breath. 

Love  !  it  lingers  ;  Love  !  it  nears  ; 

Love !  O  Love !  the  Rose  appears 

Blushful,  magic,  reddening  air. 

Now    the    choice    is    on    thee ;    dare ! 

Mortal  seems  the  touch,  but  makes 

Immortal  the  hand  that  takes. 

Feel  what  sea  within  thee  shames 

Of  its  force  all  other  claims, 

Drowns  them.     Clasp !  the  world  will  be 

Heavenly  Rose  to  swelling  sea ! 

This  will  need  a  good  deal  of  explanation,  though  I  am 
sure  that  you  can  feel  the  general  meaning  without  any  ex- 
planation. The  poet  is  making  a  reference  to  the  rose  of 
the  alchemist's  dream — the  strange  old  fairy-tale  of  the 
Rosicrucians.  It  was  believed  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  even 
later,  that  an  Elixir  of  Life  might  be  formed  by  chemistry — 
that  is  to  say,  a  magical  drink  that  would  make  old  men 
young  again,  or  prolong  life  through  hundreds  of  years.  It 
was  said  that  whenever  this  wonderful  drink  was  made  in  a 
laboratory,  there  would  appear  in  the  liquid  the  ghostly 
image  of  a  luminous  Rose.  It  would  take  much  too  long  to 
go  into  the  history  of  this  curious  and  very  poetical  fancy. 
Suffice  to  say  that  the  poet  here  uses  the  symbol  of  the  rose 
of  the  alchemist  to  signify  life  itself — the  essence  of  youth, 
and  the  essence  of  passion  and  the  worship  of  beauty.  Now 
we  can  attempt  to  paraphrase: 

How  wondrous  beauty  is !  How  wondrous  life  and  love ! 
Yet  quickly  these  must  pass  away.     Of  what  worth  is  life 


178        THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

without  love?  Better  to  love  and  die  quickly.  The  desire 
of  the  lover  is,  in  its  way,  a  desire  for  sacrifice ;  he  is  willing 
to  give  his  life  a  thousand  times  over  for  the  being  he  adores. 
He  thinks  that  love  is  life,  that  there  is  nothing  else  worth 
existing  for.  His  passion  gives  new  and  strange  colour  to 
all  his  thoughts,  new  intensity  to  all  his  senses;  the  world 
becomes  more  beautiful  for  him.  Even  as  if  the  colour  of 
the  sunlight  were  changed,  so  do  all  things  appear  changed 
to  the  vision  of  the  man  who  is  then  bewitched.  But,  even 
during  the  bewitchment,  he  is  faintly  conscious  of  duty,  of 
right  and  wrong,  of  a  voice  within  him  warning  against  dan- 
gers. He  knows,  he  fears,  but  he  will  not  heed.  He  rea- 
sons against  his  conscience.  Is  not  this  attraction  really 
divine?  She  is  only  a  woman,  yet  merely  to  touch  her  hand 
gives  a  shock,  as  of  something  supernatural.  Then  the  very 
strength  of  passion  itself  makes  it  seem  more  natural.  The 
poet  compares  it  to  a  sea — the  tide  of  impulse  could  not 
be  better  described,  because  of  its  depth  and  force.  And  al- 
ways the  urging  of  this  passion  is  "Take  her !  Do  not  care ! 
That  will  be  heaven  for  you!" 

The  last  stanza  has  a  strange  splendour,  as  well  as  a 
strange  power;  reckless  passion  has  never  been  more  won- 
derfully described  in  sixteen  lines.  And  to  which  of  the 
three  voices  does  the  poet  give  preference?  Not  to  any  of 
them.  He  says  that  all  of  them  are  deficient  in  true  wis- 
dom. The  first  he  calls  "liquid" — meaning  sweet,  like  the 
cry  of  a  dove.  But  that  does  not  mean  that  it  is  altogether 
commendable.  The  second  voice  he  calls  a  "caw" — mean- 
ing that  it  is  dismal  and  harsh,  like  the  cry  of  a  black  crow. 
As  for  the  last,  he  says  only  that  it  is  "the  cry  that  knows 
not  law  !"  By  this  he  means  that  which  suffers  no  restraint, 
and  which  therefore  is  incomparably  dangerous.  Yet  I 
suppose  that  it  is  better  than  the  caw.  What  the  poet  thinks 
is  that  the  three  different  voices  united  together,  so  that 
each  makes  harmony  with  the  others,  so  that  the  good  which 


THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH       179 

is  in  each  could  make  accord — would  be  "music  of  the  sun !" 

Hark  to   the   three!     Chimed   they   in   one, 
Life  were  music  of  the  sun. 
Liquid  first ;  and  then  the  caw ; 
Then  the  cry  that  knows  not  law. 

This  utterance  is  not  nearly  so  commonplace  as  we  might 
think  at  first  reading.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  deep  philoso- 
phy in  it.  Meredith  means  that  all  our  impulses,  all  our 
passions,  all  our  selfishness,  and  even  our  revolts  against  law, 
have  their  value  in  the  eternal  order  of  things.  In  a  per- 
fect man  all  these  emotions  and  sentiments  would  still  ex- 
ist, but  they  would  exist  only  in  such  form  that  they  would 
beautifully  counterbalance  each  other.  But  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  human  perfection,  and  the  individual  is  there- 
fore very  likely  to  be  dominated  by  selfishness  if  he  acts 
cautiously,  and  dominated  by  passion  when  he  acts  without 
judgment. 

I  think  I  have  quoted  enough  of  Meredith  to  give  you 
some  notion  of  his  particular  quality.  At  all  events  I  hope 
that  you  may  become  interested  in  him.  He  is  especially 
the  poet  of  scholars;  the  poet  of  men  of  culture.  Only  a 
man  of  culture  can  really  like  him — just  as  only  a  man  long 
accustomed  to  good  living  can  appreciate  the  best  kinds  of 
wine.  Give  fine  wine  to  a  poor  man  accustomed  only  to 
drink  coarse  spirits,  and  he  will  not  care  about  it.  So  the 
common  reader  cannot  care  about  Meredith.  He  is  what 
we  call  a  "test-poet" — your  culture,  your  capacity  to  think 
and  feel,  is  tested  by  your  ability  to  like  such  a  poet.  The 
question,  "Do  you  like  Meredith4?"  is  now  in  English  and 
even  in  French  literary  circles,  a  test.  But  remember  that 
Meredith  has  great  faults.  If  he  did  not  have,  he  would 
rank  at  the  very  top  of  the  Victorian  poets.  But  he  has  the 
fault  of  obscurity,  like  Browning,  he  often  tortures  language 
into  the  most  amazing  forms,  and  he  is  about  the  most  diffi- 
cult of  all  English  poets  to  read.     His  early  work  is  much 


180        THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

better  than  his  later  in  this  respect.  But  the  difficulty  of 
Meredith  is  not  only  a  difficulty  of  language.  No  one  can 
understand  him  who  does  not  also  understand  the  philosoph- 
ical thought  of  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
He  is  especially  the  poet  of  a  particular  time,  and  for  that 
reason  it  is  very  much  to  be  regretted  that  he  is  less  clear 
than  almost  any  literary  artist  of  his  period. 


S>' 


CHAPTER  IX 
GEORGE  BORROW 

You  will  probably  find,  in  the  course  of  your  future  reading, 
many  references  to  the  name  of  Borrow,  not  only  in  English, 
but  in  French  and  German  books.  Do  not  forget  the  cor- 
rect spelling;  for  even  so  great  an  author  as  Prosper  Merimee 
spells  it  wrong,  using  an  "a"  instead  of  an  "o."  There  are 
many  Barrows  in  English  literature,  but  there  is  only  one 
Borrow  worth  remembering.  He  is  very  well  worth  re- 
membering, being  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  Englishmen 
that  ever  lived.  His  life  work  is  principally  important  as 
throwing  light  upon  the  manners,  customs,  and  language  of 
a  mysterious  people — the  gipsies  (or  gypsies);  and  he 
studied  this  people  in  many  different  countries. 

I  doubt  whether  there  are  now  any  gipsies  in  Japan; 
and  I  suppose  that  the  subject  will  be  sufficiently  new  to  in- 
terest you.  There  are  many  references  to  gipsies  in  Eng- 
lish literature  as  far  back  as  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies; and  if  you  have  seen  any  of  these  references,  in  the 
old  ballads  for  example,  you  probably  took  the  term  to  mean 
some  sort  of  wandering  vagabond.  Wandering  vagabonds 
only,  the  gipsies  were,  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  almost  to  that  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  first  ap- 
proach to  a  correct  understanding  of  these  people  was  the 
work  of  Borrow. 

The  exact  date  at  which  gipsies  first  appeared  in  Europe 
seems  to  be  still  a  matter  of  conjecture;  but  it  is  certain  that 
they  were  in  Spain  and  other  parts  of  Western  Europe  at  a 
very  early  day.  They  were  wandering  people,  without  a  re- 
ligion, without  any  of  the  habits  of  civilization;  people  who 
spoke  a  peculiar  language,  and  who  lived  chiefly  by  trickery 
and  crime.     Indeed,  their  name  became  at  one  time  synony- 

181 


182  GEORGE  BORROW 

mous  with  crime  of  many  kinds.  They  were  a  race  of  prey. 
They  practised  magic,  fortune-telling,  and  all  those  arts  by 
which  the  cunning  are  able  to  extort  money  from  the  simple. 
They  were,  also,  in  every  country,  excellent  horse-dealers 
and  great  masters  of  the  art  of  horsemanship.  Another  of 
their  favourite  occupations  was  black-smith  work,  and  in 
later  centuries  they  added  to  this  trade  that  of  tinsmith. 
Finally,  as  professional  wrestlers,  professional  fighters,  and 
in  England  professional  boxers,  they  were  unsurpassed, 
not  so  much  on  account  of  their  strength,  as  on  account  of 
their  marvellous  agility.  Probably  the  best  boxer  of  the 
nineteenth  century — he  is  still  alive — was  the  English 
gipsy,  Mace. 

Dreaded  everywhere  and  despised  everywhere,  these  wan- 
dering people  managed  to  subsist  in  all  parts  of  Europe, 
notwithstanding  the  laws  made  in  regard  to  them.  They 
refused  to  live  in  houses,  to  submit  to  any  discipline,  or  to 
remain  in  any  one  place  for  a  great  length  of  time.  Curi- 
ously enough,  the  Inquisition  left  them  alone.  The  Inquisi- 
tion was  looking  after  heresy;  but  people  that  had  no  re- 
ligion at  all,  did  not  interfere  with  its  plans,  and  as  crim- 
inals the  gipsies  could  be  better  managed  by  the  civil 
authorities.  Nevertheless  the  gipsies  found  it  expedient 
to  have  among  them  as  many  fair  haired  people  as  possible, 
in  order  to  lessen  the  risk  of  discovery  by  complexion;  for 
they  were  a  much  darker  people  than  Europeans.  Accord- 
ingly they  began  at  an  early  day  the  practice  of  stealing 
children  and  bringing  up  the  stolen  children  as  gipsies,  so 
that  the  name  of  gipsy,  even  during  the  eighteenth  century, 
became  a  word  of  terror  to  mothers,  as  the  stolen  child 
would  not  be  brought  back  again. 

With  all  their  faults,  however,  this  people  had  virtues  of 
their  own.  They  were  true  to  each  other,  capable  of  ex- 
traordinary gratitude  as  well  as  of  extraordinary  revenge; 
and  their  women,  often  strangely  beautiful,  were  recognized 
as  faithful  to  their  husbands.     Gipsy  women  never  became 


GEORGE  BORROW  183 

prostitutes.  Also  the  skill  of  the  people  in  certain  callings 
made  them  a  great  reputation,  well  deserved — in  the  breed- 
ing and  raising  of  horses,  for  example.  All  over  the  world, 
even  in  the  United  States  today,  a  great  deal  of  the  business 
of  horse-raising  and  horse  trading  is  managed  by  gipsies. 

What  we  know  about  them  now  makes  them  more  inter- 
esting than  ever  as  subjects  of  study.  They  are  not  Euro- 
peans, but  Oriental;  they  speak  a  language  having  a  very 
close  affinity  with  Hindustani ;  and  they  are  almost  certainly 
of  Indian  origin.  The  activity  and  dexterity  of  the  men 
and  the  beauty  of  the  women,  are  not  European  at  all. 
Having  been  for  many  centuries  social  outlaws,  they  were 
obliged  to  associate  a  great  deal  with  the  criminal  classes 
of  great  cities;  and  to  these  they  taught  something  of  their 
own  language.  The  secret  words  today  used  by  criminal 
classes  in  London,  Paris  or  New  York,  are  now  known  to 
be  largely  composed  of  gipsy  words,  which  are  Indian  words 
that  have  become  adopted  into  European  slang. 

As  I  have  already  said,  the  first  general  knowledge  of  the 
origin,  habits,  and  customs  of  this  extraordinary  race  was 
given  to  the  world  by  Borrow.  Borrow,  from  boyhood, 
seems  to  have  been  fascinated  by  them,  and  to  have  passed  a 
great  deal  of  his  time  in  their  company.  He  was  not,  how- 
ever, either  the  first  or  the  last  man  charmed  by  the  gipsies. 
As  early  as  the  seventeenth  century  we  have  the  record  of  an 
Oxford  student  running  away  from  civilized  life  to  become 
a  gipsy — which  forms  the  subject  of  Matthew  Arnold's  very 
beautiful  poem  "The  Scholar-Gipsy."  Some  twenty  years 
ago  we  had  also  an  instance  of  an  English  nobleman  marry- 
ing a  gipsy  girl  with  unfortunate  results.  Gipsies  have 
been  favourite  figures  also  in  many  modern  novels  and  ro- 
mances. Charles  Reade's  "Terrible  Temptation"  is  a  good 
example.  Indeed,  English  novels  about  gipsy  life  could 
be  numbered  by  scores;  I  shall  only  mention  that  the 
prettiest  English  story  on  the  subject  is  Le  Fanu's  "Bird  of 
Passage,"  and  that  the  best  French  story  on  the  subject  is 


184  GEORGE  BORROW 

Prosper  Merimee's  "Carmen,"  which  has  inspired  a  beau- 
tiful musical  composition — the  great  opera  of  "Carmen"  by 
Bizet.  The  author  of  the  French  romance  acknowledges 
that  he  owes  everything  to  Borrow. 

Now  we  can  turn  to  the  life  of  Borrow  himself,  one  of 
the  strangest  Englishmen  that  ever  lived.  He  was  born 
in  1803,  the  son  of  a  captain  in  the  army.  His  education 
was  partly  in  Ireland,  partly  in  Scotland,  and  partly  in  Eng- 
land, according  to  where  his  father's  regiment  happened  to 
be  stationed.  In  the  intervals  of  his  school  studies  he  seems 
to  have  first  made  the  acquaintances  of  the  gipsies,  and  to 
have  learned  something  of  their  language  and  habits.  He 
wanted  to  be  like  them,  free  to  wander  where  he  pleased; 
perhaps  he  regretted  that  he  had  a  fair  complexion,  for  we 
hear  that  while  at  school  he  used  to  rub  his  face  with  walnut 
juice  in  order  to  look  like  a  gipsy,  for  which  his  teacher 
rebuked  him  sometimes  before  all  the  class.  In  1819  he 
left  school  to  be  apprenticed  to  a  lawyer — not  an  occupa- 
tion at  all  suited  to  a  person  who  liked  gipsies.  He  himself 
said  of  law  that  it  was  only  "a  talent  for  explaining  the  self- 
evident,  illustrating  the  obvious,  and  expatiating  on  the 
commonplace."  Instead  of  studying  law,  he  studied  lan- 
guages in  the  office,  and  studied  them  upon  an  astonishing 
scale.  In  the  poet  Southey's  correspondence  we  find  men- 
tion of  him  as  a  young  man  who,  although  not  yet  eighteen, 
knew  twelve  languages — Welsh,  Erse,  Latin,  Greek,  He- 
brew, German,  Danish,  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  and  Port- 
uguese. Not  satisfied  with  this  acquisition,  he  began  to 
study  Oriental  languages,  and  we  find  him  regretting  that 
he  could  find  no  good  teacher  of  Chinese.  Chinese  he  did 
not  understand;  but  in  1835  we  know  that  he  had  mastered 
some  thirty  languages,  including  not  a  few  of  the  least 
known.  Needless  to  say  that  he  proved  of  no  use  to  the 
law.  He  gave  up  the  profession  before  reaching  his  ma- 
jority, and  disappeared.  It  is  supposed  that  he  then  joined 
the  gipsies.     He  is  known  to  have  travelled  over  all  parts 


GEORGE  BORROW  185 

of  Europe;  but  he  has  left  no  record  of  his  experiences  in 
most  of  the  countries  which  he  visited.  We  next  hear  of 
him  in  Russia,  in  1826;  and  we  hear  of  him  superintending 
the  first  translation  of  the  English  Bible  into  Manchutata. 
Returning  to  England  in  1835  ne  published  a  book  called 
"Targum" — translations  in  verse  from  thirty  different  lan- 
guages. The  English  Bible  society,  delighted  by  his  trans- 
lation of  the  Bible  into  Tartar,  commissioned  him  to  act 
as  their  agent  in  Spain;  and  Borrow  gladly  undertook  the 
work — not  because  he  really  cared  very  much  either  for 
the  Bible  Society  or  the  Bible,  but  because  he  wanted  to 
study  the  gipsies  of  Spain  after  a  new  fashion.  He  trans- 
lated, or  got  translated,  a  good  deal  of  the  Bible  into  Gipsy ; 
but  this  fact  was  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  book 
which  he  produced  on  his  return  from  Spain,  entitled  "The 
Zincali;  or  an  Account  of  the  Gipsies  in  Spain."  It  was 
not  only  a  book  of  wonderful  interest  and  value,  by  reason 
of  the  novelty  of  the  subject;  but  it  was  itself  quite  a  nov- 
elty as  a  mere  piece  of  literary  art.  Everybody  was  de- 
lighted with  it.  But  they  were  still  more  delighted  with 
the  book  which  he  produced  in  1843  called  "The  Bible  in 
Spain."  This  was  an  account  of  his  wanderings  and  ad- 
ventures in  Spain,  during  his  work  for  the  Bible  Society ;  and 
it  took  the  English  public  by  storm.  It  was  even  mentioned 
in  a  speech  made  in  the  House  of  Lords.  He  next  produced 
a  book  called  "Lavengro,"  chiefly  an  account  of  his  wan- 
derings and  friendships  with  gipsies  during  his  youth  in 
England.  In  1857  he  produced  "The  Romany  Rye,"  a 
gipsy  novel — afterwards  dramatized  for  the  English  stage. 
In  1874  ne  published  his  "Romano  Lavo-lif;  or  Word- 
book of  the  Gipsy-Language."     In  1881  he  died. 

There  is  perhaps  no  other  man  so  widely  known  as  Bor- 
row, about  whose  private  life  so  little  is  known.  Living  in 
the  strangest  fashion  in  different  parts  of  Europe,  wander- 
ing from  place  to  place  with  bands  of  gipsies,  hiding  himself 
under  a  multitude  of  disguises,  he  actually  remained  during 


186  GEORGE  BORROW 

the  greater  part  of  his  life  invisible  to  society.  We  know 
very  little  about  what  he  did  or  where  he  went  until  he  was 
already  past  middle  age.  We  have  reason  to  believe  that 
he  very  nearly  lost  his  life  on  one  or  two  occasions  by  arous- 
ing the  suspicion  of  the  gipsies,  who  imagined  him  to  be  a 
police  spy.  But  everything  about  him,  even  the  stories 
which  he  tells  us  of  his  adventures,  must  be  considered  un- 
certain. When  at  last  he  married  a  rich  English  widow, 
and  was  introduced  by  his  admirers  into  good  society,  he 
could  not  stay  in  it.  His  gipsy  life  had  rendered  him  unfit 
for  any  other.  He  could  not  sit  still  in  a  room  for  half 
an  hour,  could  not  obey  conventions,  could  not  endure  those 
little  kindly  hypocrisies  by  which  alone  society  is  made  en- 
durable. He  fled  from  London  into  the  country,  and  there 
passed  the  last  years  of  his  life,  ready  to  show  kindness  to 
any  wandering  unconventional  persons,  especially  gipsies, 
but  obstinately  refusing  to  meet  men  of  culture — authors, 
clergymen,  gentlemen  or  ladies  of  any  rank.  The  habits  of 
his  boyhood  had  shaped  his  whole  life  and  changed  his  whole 
character.  By  blood  only  he  remained  an  Englishman;  in 
thought,  habit  and  feeling  he  became  altogether  a  gipsy. 

Into  English  literature,  Borrow  brought  a  new  element, 
a  new  quality  of  romantic  narration.  None  of  his  books 
is,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  either  a  novel  or  a 
romance;  they  are  all  romantic  narrative  of  things  really  felt 
and  seen.  He  did  not  attempt  any  complete  framework  of 
story;  there  is  no  beginning  and  no  end;  there  is  no  order; 
there  is  no  sequence.  I  do  not  know  how  to  explain  his 
method  better  than  by  telling  you  that  most  of  his  works 
resemble  note-books.  Nevertheless,  these  books  have  a 
charm  and  a  quality  absolutely  original,  and  still  command 
a  great  deal  of  admiration  and  attention,  especially  from  the 
young.  He  perceived  that  the  most  ordinary  incident  of 
everyday  life  could  be  made  interesting,  and  the  most  or- 
dinary emotions  and  impressions  obtained  value  by  proper 
literary  treatment;  and  out  of  almost  nothing  he  was  able 


GEORGE  BORROW  187 

to  produce  volumes,  half  fiction,  half  truth,  such  as  had 
never  been  produced  before.  It  is  somewhat  of  a  puzzle  to 
determine  where  the  true  thing  ends  and  where  the  fiction 
begins ;  but  the  best  critics  are  inclined  to  think  that  the  fie- 
tion  lies  chiefly  in  the  combination  of  incidents,  and  the 
truth  in  the  incidents  themselves.  This  theory  allows  us  to 
feel  a  great  deal  of  respect  for  the  author.  It  is  not  a  case 
like  Defoe's,  who  wrote  out  of  his  imagination.  Borrow 
wrote  fact ;  but  he  combined  the  facts  of  different  years  and 
different  places  in  such  a  manner  as  to  give  you  an  idea 
that  they  belong  to  a  particular,  brief  period  of  experience. 
He  has  had  no  imitators  worth  mentioning,  because  the  par- 
ticular skill  with  which  he  constructed  his  books  depended 
upon  a  genius  of  the  most  original  kind.  Perhaps  no  Eng- 
lishman could  successfully  imitate  him.  But  I  observe  that 
some  of  the  finest  modern  French  work — sketches  of  travel 
in  particular — is  being  constructed  upon  lines  remarkably 
similar  to  the  method  of  Borrow.  I  do  not  think  this  is  an 
imitation;  it  is  rather  a  spontaneous  creation  of  the  same 
sort;  and  it  is  the  work  of  men  who,  like  Borrow,  have  passed 
their  lives  in  wandering  about  the  world. 


CHAPTER  X 

NOTE  UPON  ROSSETTI'S  PROSE 

As  we  are  now  studying  Rossetti's  poetry  in  other  hours, 
you  may  be  interested  in  some  discussion  of  the  merits  of  his 
prose — for  this  is  still,  so  far  as  the  great  public  are  con- 
cerned, almost  an  unknown  topic.  The  best  of  the  painters 
of  his  own  school,  and  the  most  delicate  poet  of  the  Victorian 
period,  Rossetti  might  also  have  become  one  of  the  greatest 
prose  writers  of  the  century  if  he  had  seriously  turned  to 
prose.  But  ill-health  and  other  circumstances  prevented 
him  from  doing  much  in  this  direction.  What  he  did  do, 
however,  is  so  remarkable  that  it  deserves  to  be  very  care- 
fully studied.  I  do  not  refer  to  his  critical  essays.  These 
are  not  very  remarkable.  I  refer  only  to  his  stories ;  and  his 
stories  are  great  because  they  happen  to  have  exactly  the 
same  kind  of  merit  that  distinguishes  his  poetry.  They 
might  be  compared  with  the  stories  of  Poe;  and  yet  they  are 
entirely  different,  with  the  difference  distinguishing  all  Latin 
prose  fiction  from  English  fiction.  But  there  is  certainly  no 
other  story  writer,  except  Poe,  with  whose  work  that  of 
Rossetti  can  be  at  all  classed.  They  are  ghostly  stories — 
one  of  them  a  fragment,  the  other  complete.  Only  two — 
and  the  outline  of  the  third.  The  fragment  is  not  less 
worthy  of  attention  because  it  happeens  to  be  a  fragment 
— like  the  poet's  own  "Bride's  Prelude,"  or  Coleridge's 
"Christabel,"  or  Poe's  "Silence."  The  trouble  with  all 
great  fragments,  and  the  proof  of  their  greatness,  is  that 
we  cannot  imagine  what  the  real  ending  would  have  been; 
and  this  puzzle  only  lends  additional  charm  to  the  imagina- 
tive effect.  Of  the  two  consecutive  stories,  it  is  the  frag- 
ment which  has  the  greater  merit. 

The  first  story,  called  "Hand  and  Soul,"  has  another  in- 

188 


ROSSETTTS  PROSE  189 

terest  besides  the  interest  of  narrative.  It  contains  the 
whole  aesthetic  creed  of  Rossetti's  school  of  painting, — a 
little  philosophy  of  art  that  is  well  worth  studying.  That 
is  especially  why  I  want  to  talk  about  it.  The  so-called 
Pre-Raphaelite  school  of  English  painting,  whereof  Rossetti 
was  the  recognized  chief,  were  not  altogether  disciples  of 
Ruskin.  They  did  not  believe  that  art  must  have  a  religious 
impulse  in  order  to  be  great  art;  and  they  did  not  exactly 
support  the  antagonistic  doctrine  of  "Art  for  Art's  sake." 
They  considered  that  absolute  sincerity  in  one's  own  con- 
ception of  the  beautiful,  and  wide  toleration  of  all  aesthetic 
ideas,  were  axiomatic  truths  which  it  was  necessary  to  accept 
without  reserve.  They  had  no  detestation  for  any  school 
of  art;  they  practically  banished  prejudice  from  their  little 
circle.  I  may  add  that  they  were  not  indifferent  to  Japanese 
art,  even  at  a  time  when  it  found  many  enemies  in  London, 
and  when  the  great  Ruskin  himself  endeavoured  to  help 
the  prejudice  against  it.  In  that  very  time  Rossetti  was 
making  Japanese  collections,  and  Burne-Jones  and  others 
were  discovering  new  methods  by  the  help  of  this  Eastern 
art. 

Now  the  story  of  "Hand  and  Soul"  is,  in  a  small  way,  a 
history  of  man's  experience  with  Painting.  It  is  supposed 
to  be  the  story  of  a  real  picture.  The  picture  is  only  the 
figure  of  a  woman  in  a  grey  and  green  dress,  very  beautiful. 
But  whoever  looks  at  that  picture  for  a  minute  or  two,  sud- 
denly becomes  afraid — afraid  in  exactly  the  same  way  that 
he  would  be  on  seeing  a  ghost.  The  picture  could  not  have 
been  painted  from  imagination;  that  figure  must  have  been 
seen  by  somebody;  and  yet  it  could  not  have  been  a  living 
woman!  Then  what  could  have  been  the  real  story  of  that 
picture1?  Did  the  artist  see  a  ghost;  or  did  he  see  some- 
thing supernatural1? 

The  answer  to  these  questions  is  the  following  story. 
The  artist  who  painted  that  picture,  four  hundred  years 
ago,  was  a  young  Italian  of  immense  genius,  so  passionately 


190  ROSSETTTS  PROSE 

devoted  to  his  art  that  he  lived  for  nothing  else.  At  first  he 
wished  only  to  be  the  greatest  painter  of  his  time ;  and  that 
he  became  without  much  difficulty.  He  painted  only  what 
he  thought  beautiful;  and  he  painted  beautiful  faces  that 
he  saw  passing  by  in  the  street,  and  beautiful  sunsets  that 
he  saw  from  his  window,  and  beautiful  fancies  that  came 
into  his  mind.  Everybody  loved  his  pictures;  and  princes 
made  him  great  gifts  of  money. 

Then  a  sudden  remorse  came  to  this  painter,  who  was  at 
heart  a  religious  man.  He  said  to  himself:  "Here,  God 
has  given  me  the  power  to  paint  beautiful  things;  and  I 
have  been  painting  only  those  beautiful  things  which  please 
the  senses  of  men.  Therefore  I  have  been  doing  wrong. 
Henceforward  I  will  paint  only  things  which  represent 
eternal  truth,  the  things  of  Heaven." 

After  that  he  began  to  paint  only  religious  and  mystical 
pictures,  and  pictures  which  common  people  could  not  un- 
derstand at  all.  The  people  no  longer  came  to  admire  his 
work;  the  princes  no  longer  paid  him  honour  or  brought  him 
gifts;  and  he  became  as  one  forgotten  in  the  world. 

Moreover,  he  found  himself  losing  his  power  as  an  artist. 
And  then,  to  crown  all  his  misfortunes,  some  of  his  most 
famous  pictures  were  ruined  one  day  by  the  extraordinary 
incident  of  a  church  fight;  for  two  great  Italian  clans  be- 
tween whom  a  feud  existed,  happened  to  meet  in  the  church 
porch,  and  a  blow  was  struck  and  swords  were  drawn — and 
there  was  such  killing  that  the  blood  of  the  fighters  was 
splashed  upon  the  paintings  on  the  wall. 

When  all  these  things  had  happened,  the  artist  despaired. 
He  became  weary  of  life,  and  thought  of  destroying  him- 
self. And  while  he  was  thus  thinking,  there  suddenly  en- 
tered his  room,  without  any  sound,  the  figure  of  a  woman 
robed  in  green  and  grey;  and  she  stood  before  him  and 
looked  into  his  eyes.  And  as  she  looked  into  his  eyes,  an 
awe  came  upon  him  such  as  he  had  never  before  known; 
and  a  great  feeling  of  sadness  also  came  with  the  awe.     But 


ROSSETTI'S  PROSE  191 

he  could  not  speak,  any  more  than  a  person  in  a  dream,  who 
wants  to  cry  out,  and  cannot  make  a  sound.  But  the  woman 
spoke  and  said  to  him,  "I  am  your  own  soul — that  soul 
to  whom  you  have  done  so  much  wrong.  And  I  have  been 
allowed  to  come  to  you  in  this  form,  only  because  you  have 
never  been  of  those  men  who  make  art  merely  to  win  money. 
To  win  fame,  however,  you  did  not  scruple;  and  that  was 
not  altogether  good,  although  it  was  not  altogether  bad. 
What  was  much  worse  was  the  pride  which  turned  you  away 
from  me — religious  pride.  You  wanted  to  do  what  God 
did  not  ask  you  to  do — to  work  against  your  own  soul,  and 
to  cast  away  your  love  of  beauty.  Into  me  God  placed  the 
desire  of  loveliness  and  the  bliss  of  the  charm  of  the  world. 
Wherefore  then  should  you  strive  against  His  work?  And 
what  pride  impelled  you  to  imagine  that  heaven  needed  the 
help  of  your  art  to  teach  men  what  is  good*?  When  did 
God  say  to  you,  Friend,  let  me  lean  upon  you,  or  I  shall  fall 
down*?  No;  it  is  by  teaching  men  to  seek  and  to  love  the 
beautiful  things  in  this  beautiful  world  that  you  make  their 
hearts  better  within  them — never  by  preaching  to  them  with 
allegories  that  they  cannot  understand;  and  because  you 
have  done  this,  you  have  been  punished.  Be  true  to  me, 
your  own  very  soul;  then  you  will  do  marvellous  things. 
Now  paint  a  picture  of  me,  just  as  I  am,  so  that  you  may 
know  that  your  power  of  art  is  given  back  to  you." 

So  the  artist  painted  a  picture  of  his  own  soul  in  the  like- 
ness of  a  woman  clad  in  green  and  grey;  and  all  who  see 
that  picture  even  today  feel  at  once  a  great  fear  and  a 
great  charm,  and  find  it  hard  to  understand  how  mortal 
man  could  have  painted  it. 

That  is  the  story  of  "Hand  and  Soul" ;  and  it  teaches  a 
great  deal  of  everlasting  truth.  Assuredly  the  road  to  all 
artistic  greatness  is  the  road  of  sincerity — truth  to  one's  own 
emotional  sense  of  what  is  beautiful.  And  just  to  that  de- 
gree in  which  the  artist  or  poet  allows  himself  to  be  made  in- 
sincere, either  by  desire  of  wealth  and  fame,  or  by  religious 


192  ROSSETTI'S  PROSE 

scruples,  just  to  that  extent  he  must  fail.  I  have  only 
given  a  very  slight  outline  of  the  tale;  to  give  more  might 
be  to  spoil  your  pleasure  of  reading  it. 

The  second  story  will  not  seem  to  you  quite  so  original 
as  the  first,  though,  to  English  minds,  it  probably  seems 
stranger.  It  is  a  story  of  pre-existence.  Now,  a  very  curi- 
ous fact  is  that  this  idea  of  pre-existence,  expressed  by  Ros- 
setti  in  many  passages  of  his  verse,  as  well  as  in  his  prose 
story,  did  not  come  to  him  from  Eastern  sources  at  all.  He 
never  cared  for,  and  perhaps  never  read,  any  Oriental  litera- 
ture. His  idea  regarding  re-birth  and  the  memory  of  past 
lives  belongs  rather  to  certain  strangely  imaginative  works 
of  mediaeval  literature,  than  to  anything  else.  Even  to 
himself  they  appeared  novel — something  dangerous  to  talk 
about.  Unless  you  understand  this,  you  will  not  be  able 
to  account  for  the  curious  thrill  of  terror  that  runs  through 
"St.  Agnes  of  Intercession."  The  writer  writes  as  if  he 
were  afraid  of  his  own  thought. 

The  story  begins  with  a  little  bit  of  autobiography,  Ros- 
setti  telling  about  his  thoughts  as  a  child,  when  he  played 
at  his  father's  knee  on  winter  evenings.  Of  course  these 
memories  did  not  appear  as  his  own;  but  as  those  of  the 
painter  supposed  to  tell  the  story.  As  a  child  this  painter 
was  very  fond  of  picture  books.  In  the  house  there  was 
one  picture  book  containing  a  picture  of  a  saint — St.  Agnes 
— which  pleased  him  in  such  a  way  that  he  could  spend 
hours  in  contemplating  it  with  delight.  But  he  did  not 
know  why.  He  grew  up,  was  educated,  became  a  man  and 
became  a  painter;  and  still  he  could  not  forget  the  charm 
of  the  picture  that  had  pleased  him  when  a  child.  One 
day  a  young  English  girl,  a  friend  of  his  sister's,  comes  to 
the  house  on  a  visit.  He  is  greatly  startled  on  seeing  her, 
because  her  face  is  exactly  like  the  face  of  the  saint  in 
the  picture  book.  He  falls  in  love  with  her,  and  they 
are  engaged  to  be  married.  But  before  that  time  he  paints 
her  portrait,  and  as  her  portrait  happens  to  be  the  best 


ROSSETTI'S  PROSE  193 

work  of  the  kind  that  he  ever  did,  he  sends  it  to  the  Royal 
Academy  to  be  put  on  exhibition.  Critics  greatly  praise 
the  picture,  but  one  of  them  remarks  that  at  Bologna  in 
Italy  there  is  a  painting  of  St.  Agnes  that  very  much  re- 
sembles it.  Upon  this  he  goes  to  Italy  to  find  the  picture, 
and  does  find  it  after  a  great  deal  of  trouble.  It  is  said 
to  be  the  work  of  a  certain  Angiolieri,  who  lived  some  four 
hundred  years  ago.  Every  detail  of  the  face  proves  to  be 
exactly  like  that  of  the  living  face  which  he  painted  in 
London.  Being  greatly  startled  by  this  discovery,  he  ex- 
amines the  catalogue  of  paintings,  which  he  bought  at  the 
door,  in  order  to  find  out  whether  there  is  anything  else  said 
in  it  about  the  model  from  whom  Angiolieri  painted  that  St. 
Agnes.  He  cannot  find  any  information  about  the  model; 
but  he  finds  out  that  in  another  part  of  the  building  there 
is  a  portrait  of  Angiolieri,  painted  by  himself.  I  think  you 
know  that  many  famous  artists  have  painted  portraits  of 
themselves.  Greatly  interested,  he  hurries  to  where  the 
picture  is  hanging,  and  finds,  to  his  amazement,  that  the  por- 
trait of  Angiolieri  is  exactly  like  himself — the  very  image 
of  him.  Was  it  then  possible  that,  four  hundred  years  be- 
fore, he  himself  might  have  been  Angiolieri,  and  had 
painted  that  picture  of  St.  Agnes'? 

A  fever  seizes  upon  him,  one  of  those  fevers  only  too 
common  in  Italy.  While  he  is  still  under  its  influence,  he 
dreams  a  dream.  He  is  in  a  picture  gallery;  and  on  the  wall 
he  sees  Angiolieri's  painting  hanging  up;  and  there  is  a  great 
crowd  looking  at  it.  In  that  crowd  he  sees  his  betrothed, 
leaning  upon  the  arm  of  another  man.  Then  he  feels  an- 
grily jealous,  and  says  to  the  strange  man,  tapping  him  on 
the  shoulder,  "Sir,  I  am  engaged  to  that  lady !"  Then  the 
man  turns  round;  and  as  he  turns  round,  his  face  proves 
to  be  the  face  of  Angiolieri,  and  his  dress  is  the  costume 
of  four  hundred  years  ago,  and  he  says,  "She  is  not  mine, 
good  friend — but  neither  is  she  thine."  As  he  speaks  his 
face  falls  in,  like  the  face  of  a  dead  man,  and  becomes  the 


19*  ROSSETTI'S  PROSE 

face  of  a  skull.     From  this  dream  we  can  guess  the  con- 
clusion which  the  author  intended. 

On  returning  to  England,  when  the  painter  attempted  to 
speak  of  what  he  had  seen  and  learned,  his  family  believed 
him  insane,  and  forbade  him  to  speak  on  the  subject  any- 
more. Also  he  was  warned  that  should  he  speak  of  it  to  his 
betrothed,  the  marriage  would  be  broken  off.  Accordingly, 
though  he  obeys,  he  is  placed  in  a  very  unhappy  position. 
All  about  him  there  is  the  oppression  of  a  mystery  involv- 
ing two  lives;  and  he  cannot  even  try  to  solve  it — cannot 
speak  about  it  to  the  person  whom  it  most  directly  concerns. 
.  .  .  And  here  the  fragment  breaks. 

If  this  admirable  story  had  been  finished,  the  result  could 
not  have  been  more  impressive  than  is  this  sudden  interrup- 
tion. We  know  that  Rossetti  intended  to  make  the  be- 
trothed girl  also  the  victim  of  a  mysterious  destiny;  but  he 
did  not  intend,  it  appears,  to  elucidate  the  reason  of  the 
thing  in  detail.  That  would  have  indeed  destroyed  the 
shadowy  charm  of  the  recital.  While  the  causes  of  things 
remain  vague  and  mysterious,  the  pleasurable  fear  of  the 
unknown  remains  with  the  reader.  But  if  you  try  to  ac- 
count for  everything,  at  once  the  illusion  vanishes,  and  the 
art  becomes  dead.  It  seems  to  me  that  Rossetti  has  given  in 
this  unfinished  tale  a  very  fine  suggestion  of  what  use  the 
old  romances  still  are.  It  was  by  careful  study  of  them, 
combined  with  his  great  knowledge  of  art,  that  he  was  able 
to  produce,  both  in  his  poetry  and  in  his  prose,  the  exquisite 
charm  of  reality  in  unreality.  Reading  either,  you  have  the 
sensation  of  actually  seeing,  touching,  feeling,  and  yet  you 
know  that  the  whole  thing  is  practically  impossible.  No 
art  of  romance  can  rise  higher  than  this.  And  speaking  of 
that  soul-woman,  whose  portrait  was  painted  in  the  for- 
mer story,  reminds  me  of  an  incident  in  Taine's  wonderful 
book  "De  lTntelligence,"  which  is  a  propos.  It  is  actually 
on  record  that  a  French  artist  had  the  following  curious  hal- 
lucination : 


ROSSETTI'S  PROSE  195 

He  was  ill,  from  overwork  perhaps,  and  opening  his  eyes 
after  a  feverish  sleep,  he  saw  a  beautiful  lady  seated  at  his 
bedside,  with  one  hand  upon  the  bed  cover,  and  he  said 
to  himself,  "This  is  certainly  an  illusion  caused  by  my 
nervous  condition.  But  how  beautiful  an  illusion  it  is! 
And  how  wonderfully  luminous  and  delicate  is  that  hand! 
If  I  dared  only  put  my  hand  where  it  is,  I  wonder  what 
would  happen.  Probably  the  whole  thing  would  vanish 
at  once,  and  I  should  lose  the  pleasure  of  looking  at  it." 

Suddenly,  as  if  answering  his  thought,  a  voice  as  clear  as 
the  voice  of  a  bird  said  to  him,  "I  am  not  a  shadow;  and 
you  can  take  my  hand  and  kiss  it  if  you  like."  He  did  lift 
the  lady's  hand  to  his  lips  and  felt  it,  and  then  he  entered 
into  conversation  with  her.  The  conversation  continued 
until  interrupted  by  the  entrance  of  the  doctor  attending 
the  patient.  This  is  the  record  of  an  extraordinary  case 
of  double  consciousness — the  illusion  and  the  reason  work- 
ing together  in  such  harmony  that  neither  in  the  slightest 
degree  disturbed  the  other.  Rossetti's  figures,  whether  of 
the  Middle  Ages  or  of  modern  times,  seem  also  like  the 
results  of  a  double  consciousness.  We  can  touch  them  and 
feel  them,  although  they  are  ghosts. 

As  I  said  before,  he  might  have  been  one  of  the  greatest 
of  romantic  story  tellers  had  he  turned  his  attention  in  that 
direction  and  kept  his  health.  No  better  proof  of  this 
could  be  asked  for  than  the  printed  plans  of  several  stories 
which  he  never  had  time  to  develop.  He  collected  the  ma- 
terial from  the  study  of  Old  French  and  Old  Italian  poets 
chiefly;  but  that  material,  when  thrown  into  the  crucible  of 
his  imagination,  assumed  totally  novel  and  strange  forms. 
I  may  tell  you  the  outline  of  one  story  by  way  of  conclusion. 
It  was  a  beautiful  idea;  and  it  is  a  great  regret  that  it  could 
not  have  been  executed  in  the  author's  lifetime : 

One  day  a  king  and  his  favourite  knight,  while  hunting 
in  a  forest,  visited  the  house  of  a  woodcutter,  or  something 
of  that  kind,  to  ask  for  water — both  being  very  thirsty. 


196  ROSSETTFS  PROSE 

The  water  was  served  to  them  by  a  young  girl  of  such  ex- 
traordinary beauty  that  both  the  king  and  the  knight  were 
greatly  startled.  The  knight  falls  in  love  with  the  maid, 
and  afterwards  asks  the  king's  leave  to  woo  her.  But 
when  he  comes  to  woo,  he  finds  out  that  the  maid  has  be- 
come enamoured  of  the  king,  whom  she  does  not  know  to 
be  the  king.  She  says  that,  unless  she  can  marry  him  she 
will  never  become  a  wife.  The  king  therefore  himself  goes 
to  her  to  plead  for  his  friend.  "I  cannot  marry  you,"  he 
says,  "because  I  am  married  already.  But  my  friend,  who 
loves  you  very  much,  is  not  married;  and  if  you  will  wed 
him  I  shall  make  him  a  baron  and  confer  upon  him  the 
gift  of  many  castles." 

The  young  girl  to  please  the  king  accepts  the  knight;  a 
grand  wedding  takes  place  at  the  king's  castle;  and  the 
knight  is  made  a  great  noble,  and  is  gifted  with  many  rich 
estates.  Then  the  king  makes  this  arrangement  with  the 
bride :  "I  will  never  visit  you  or  allow  you  to  visit  me,  be- 
cause we  love  each  other  too  much.  But,  once  every  year, 
when  I  go  to  hunt  in  the  forest  with  your  husband,  you 
shall  bring  me  a  cup  of  water,  just  as  on  the  first  day,  when 
we  saw  you." 

After  this  the  king  saw  her  three  times; — that  is  to  say, 
in  three  successive  years  she  greeted  him  with  the  cup  of 
water  when  he  went  hunting.  In  the  fourth  year  she  died, 
leaving  behind  her  a  little  daughter. 

The  sorrowing  husband  carefully  brought  up  the  little 
girl — or,  at  least  caused  her  to  be  carefully  brought  up; 
but  he  never  presented  her  to  the  king,  or  spoke  of  her,  be- 
cause the  death  of  the  mother  was  a  subject  too  painful 
for  either  of  them  to  talk  about. 

But  when  the  girl  was  sixteen  years  old,  she  looked  so 
exactly  like  her  mother,  that  the  father  was  startled  by  the 
resemblance.  And  he  thought,  "Tomorrow  I  shall  present 
her  to  the  king."  And  to  his  daughter  he  said,  "Tomorrow 
I  am  going  to  hunt  with  the  king.     When  we  are  on  our 


ROSSETTI'S  PROSE  197 

way  home,  we  shall  stop  at  a  little  cottage  in  the  wood — the 
little  cottage  in  which  your  mother  used  to  live.  Do  you 
then  wait  in  the  cottage,  and  when  the  king  comes,  bring 
him  a  cup  of  water,  just  as  your  mother  did." 

So  next  day  the  king  and  his  baron  approached  the  cot- 
tage after  their  hunt;  and  the  king  was  greatly  astonished 
and  moved  by  the  apparition  of  a  young  girl  offering  him  a 
cup  of  water — so  strangely  did  she  resemble  the  girl  whom 
he  had  seen  in  the  same  place  nearly  twenty  years  before. 
And  as  he  took  the  cup  from  her  hand,  his  heart  went  out 
toward  her,  and  he  asked  his  companion,  "Is  this  indeed 
the  ghost  of  her? — or  another  dear  vision?"  But  before 
the  companion  could  make  any  answer — lo !  another  shadow 
stood  between  the  king  and  the  girl;  and  none  could  have 
said  which  was  which,  so  exactly  each  beautiful  face  re- 
sembled the  other — only  the  second  apparition  wore  peas- 
ant clothes.  And  she  that  wore  the  clothes  of  a  peasant 
girl  kissed  the  king  as  he  sat  upon  his  horse,  and  disap- 
peared. And  the  king  immediately,  on  receiving  that  kiss 
and  returning  it,  fell  forward  and  died. 

This  is  a  vague,  charming  romance  indeed,  for  some  one 
to  take  up  and  develop.  Of  course  the  figure  in  the  peasant 
clothes  is  the  spirit  of  the  mother  of  the  girl.  There  are 
many  pretty  stories  somewhat  resembling  this  in  the  old 
Japanese  story  books,  but  none  quite  the  same;  and  I  ven- 
ture to  recommend  anybody  who  understands  the  literary 
value  of  such  things  to  attempt  a  modified  version  of  Ros- 
setti's  outline  in  Japanese.  Some  things  would,  of  course, 
have  to  be  changed ;  but  no  small  changes  would  in  the  least 
affect  the  charm  of  the  story  as  a  whole. 

In  conclusion,  I  may  observe  that  the  object  of  this  little 
lecture  has  not  been  merely  to  interest  you  in  the  prose  of 
Rossetti,  but  also  to  quicken  your  interest  in  the  subject 
of  romance  in  general.  Remember  that  no  matter  how 
learned  or  how  scientific  the  world  may  become,  romance 
can  never  die.     No  greater  mistake  could  be  made  by  the 


198  ROSSETTTS  PROSE 

Japanese  student  than  that  of  despising  the  romantic  ele- 
ment in  the  literature  of  his  own  country.  Recently  I  have 
been  thinking  very  often  that  a  great  deal  might  be  done 
toward  the  development  of  later  literature  by  remodelling 
and  reanimating  the  romance  of  the  older  centuries.  I  be- 
lieve that  many  young  writers  think  chiefly  about  the  possi- 
bility of  writing  something  entirely  new.  This  is  a  great 
literary  misfortune;  for  the  writing  of  something  entirely 
new  is  scarcely  possible  for  any  human  being.  The  greatest 
Western  writers  have  not  become  great  by  trying  to  write 
what  is  new,  but  by  writing  over  again  in  a  much  better 
way,  that  which  is  old.  Rossetti  and  Tennyson  and  scores 
of  others  made  the  world  richer  simply  by  going  back  to  the 
literature  of  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  giving  it  re-birth. 
Like  everything  else,  even  a  good  story  must  die  and  be  re- 
born hundreds  of  times  before  it  shows  the  highest  possi- 
bilities of  beauty.  All  literary  history  is  a  story  of  re-birth 
— periods  of  death  and  restful  forgetfulness  alternating  with 
periods  of  resurrection  and  activity.  In  the  domain  of  pure 
literature  nobody  need  ever  be  troubled  for  want  of  a  sub- 
ject. He  has  only  to  look  for  something  which  has  been 
dead  for  a  very  long  time,  and  to  give  that  body  a  new  soul. 
In  romance  it  would  be  absurd  to  think  about  despising  a 
subject,  because  it  is  unscientific.  Science  has  nothing  to 
do  with  pure  romance  or  poetry,  though  it  may  enrich  both. 
These  are  emotional  flowers;  and  what  we  can  do  for  them 
is  only  to  transplant  and  cultivate  them,  much  as  roses  or 
chrysanthemums  are  cultivated.  The  original  wild  flower 
is  very  simple ;  but  the  clever  gardener  can  develop  the  sim- 
ple blossom  into  a  marvellous  compound  apparition,  display- 
ing ten  petals  where  the  original  could  show  but  one.  Now 
the  same  horticultural  process  can  be  carried  out  with  any 
good  story  or  poem  or  drama  in  Japan,  just  as  readily  as  in 
any  other  country.  The  romantic  has  nothing  to  gain  from 
the  new  learning  except  in  the  direction  of  pure  art;  the 
new  learning,  by  enriching  the  language  and  enlarging  the 


ROSSETTI'S  PROSE  199 

imagination,  makes  it  possible  to  express  the  ancient  beauty 
in  a  new  and  much  more  beautiful  way.  Tennyson  might 
be  quoted  in  illustration.  What  is  the  difference  between 
his  two  or  three  hundred  lines  of  wondrous  poetry  entitled 
"The  Passing  of  Arthur,"  and  the  earliest  thirteenth  or  four- 
teenth century  idea  of  the  same  mythical  event"?  The  facts 
in  either  case  are  the  same.  But  the  language  and  the  imag- 
ery are  a  thousand  times  more  forcible  and  more  vivid  in  the 
Victorian  poet.  Indeed,  progress  in  belles-lettres  is  almost 
altogether  brought  about  by  making  old  things  conform 
to  the  imagination  of  succeeding  generations;  and  poesy,  like 
the  human  race,  of  which  it  represents  the  emotional  spirit, 
must  change  its  dress  and  the  colour  of  its  dress  as  the  world 
also  changes. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THOMAS  LOVELL  BEDDOES 

Within  the  past  few  years  an  author  very  little  known 
previously  has  suddenly  come  into  fresh  prominence.  Dur- 
ing his  life  he  published  nothing  of  consequence;  after  his 
death  his  papers  were  collected,  edited,  and  printed,  but 
attracted  scarcely  any  attention.  Then,  owing  chiefly  to 
the  efforts  of  the  poet  Robert  Browning,  they  were  forced 
upon  public  attention  in  a  new  way,  and  now  command 
our  interest. 

Beddoes  was  one  of  the  most  curious  literary  figures  of 
the  beginning  of  the  century.  He  was  born  in  1803;  and 
he  came  of  literary  stock,  for  his  mother  was  a  sister  of 
Maria  Edgeworth,  the  great  novelist.  His  father  was  a 
physician.  Beddoes  studied  at  Oxford,  but  he  hesitated  for 
a  long  time  over  what  profession  he  should  follow.  His  in- 
clinations were  towards  literature;  but  he  became  doubtful 
of  his  abilities  in  this  direction,  and  finally  decided  to 
study  medicine.  He  went  to  Germany,  became  strangely 
attached  to  the  German  customs,  language  and  way  of  life, 
and  never  returned  to  England  except  for  short  visits.  He 
became  so  German  in  all  his  ways,  thoughts,  and  manner  of 
address,  that  even  his  own  friends  were  known  to  mistake 
him  repeatedly  for  a  German.  And  what  was  still  more 
curious,  he  wrote  German  poetry  with  remarkable  success. 

The  world  really  appeared  to  smile  upon  him;  he  ob- 
tained distinction  after  distinction,  made  multitudes  of 
scholarly  friends,  could  have  obtained  almost  any  position 
that  he  desired;  and  yet  an  utter  disgust  with  life  suddenly 
came  upon  him.  Nothing  could  cure  it,  and  even  to  this 
day  the  cause  of  it  is  not  fully  known.     We  only  know  that 

after  having  accidentally  cut  himself  while  performing  an 

200 


THOMAS  LOVELL  BEDDOES  201 

autopsy  on  a  dead  body,  he  was  a  long  time  laid  up  with 
blood  poisoning;  and  that  during  this  sickness  he  determined 
to  commit  suicide.  He  cut  himself  in  the  right  leg  below 
the  knee,  probably  intending  to  let  himself  bleed  to  death. 
But  friends  discovered  what  had  happened,  and  he  was 
nursed  very  carefully,  and  was  watched  to  prevent  him 
from  making  another  attempt.  It  was,  however,  found 
necessary  to  cut  off  the  leg — gangrene  having  supervened. 
Beddoes  survived  the  amputation;  but  as  soon  as  he  was 
able  to  leave  the  hospital  on  crutches  he  went  to  a  drug  shop, 
and  by  virtue  of  his  right  as  a  physician,  was  able  to  buy 
a  large  quantity  of  the  terrible  South  American  poison  called 
curare.  Returning  to  the  hospital  he  swallowed  the  drug. 
Next  day  he  was  found  dead  in  bed,  and  beside  him  lay  a 
very  philosophical  letter,  bidding  good-bye  to  his  friends, 
but  not  dwelling  at  all  upon  his  troubles  or  the  cause  of 
his  suicide.  Indeed,  the  letter  read  exactly  like  an  ordi- 
nary letter  on  various  matters  of  medical  business.  After 
his  death,  an  examination  of  his  papers  revealed  the  fact 
that  he  had  been  doing,  just  to  amuse  himself,  some  very 
extraordinary  literary  work.  The  poet  Robert  Browning 
and  other  men  became  interested  in  these  remains;  and  a 
few  years  ago,  under  the  editorship  of  Edmund  Gosse,  they 
were  published  in  two  volumes. 

These  volumes  give  to  Beddoes  an  almost  unique  place 
in  nineteenth-century  literature.  His  principal  work  is  a 
drama  called  "Death's  Jest-Book."  As  a  dramatic  com- 
position it  has  many  defects,  but  the  lyrics  scattered  through 
it  are  of  extraordinary  original  beauty;  and  a  good  deal  of 
work  of  the  same  quality  exists  in  other  forms.  When 
Bedddes  is  not  beautiful,  he  is  at  least  strikingly  impressive; 
and  he  has  excelled  especially  in  poems  of  a  cynical  and 
terrible  kind,  in  the  grotesque  and  the  grim.  These  terri- 
ble poems  will  always  be  curiosities;  they  will  probably 
find  a  place  as  enduring  as  some  of  the  work  of  Edgar  Poe. 
But  Beddoes'  claims  to  a  very  high  place  in  poetry  rests 


202  THOMAS  LOVELL  BEDDOES 

rather  upon  verses  of  a  particularly  delicate  and  graceful 
kind.  Two  of  these  I  think  it  will  be  well  to  quote ;  for  it 
is  at  this  very  time  that  his  work  is  coming  into  general 
notice,  and  a  few  of  his  stanzas  should  tell  you  more  about 
him  than  a  dozen  pages  of  criticism. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  most  beautiful  of  his  lyri- 
cal pieces  is  that  called  "Dream-Pedlary." 

If  there  were  dreams  to  sell, 

What  would  you  buy? 
Some  cost  a  passing  bell, 

Some  a  light  sigh 
That  shakes  from  life's  fresh  crown 
Only  a  rose-leaf  down. 
If  there  were  dreams  to  sell, 
Merry  and  sad  to  tell, 
And  the  crier  rang  the  bell, 

What  would  you  buy? 

A  cottage  lone  and  still, 

With  bowers  nigh, 
Shadowy,  my  woes  to  still 

Until  I  die; 
Some  pearl  from  Life's  fresh  crown 
Fain  would  I  shake  me  down. 
Were  dreams  to  have  at  will, 
This  would  best  heal  my  ill, 

This  would  I  buy. 

It  is  the  charming  philosophy  of  these  verses,  not  less  than 
their  exquisiteness,  that  has  made  them  famous.  You 
must  not  understand  the  verses  too  literally.  Let  us  rather 
assume  dreams  to  be  joys,  delights  that  are  called  dreams 
only  in  the  deep  meaning  that  all  pleasures  are  unstable,  and 
therefore  illusions,  like  visions  in  sleep.  But  illusions  are 
very  pleasant  things  in  their  way.  Suppose  we  could  buy 
them.  We  can  buy  a  great  many  things  if  we  are  willing 
to  pay  the  price.  There  are  dreams  which  we  can  only  buy 
at  the  cost  of  life ;  we  must  die  before  we  can  see  them.  But 
there  are  others  that  we  can  obtain  much  cheaper,  just  at 


THOMAS  LOVELL  BEDDOES  203 

the  cost  of  very  little  pain.  The  poet  says  that  life  left 
him  with  the  wish  only  for  a  very  quiet  place  to  live  in, 
apart  from  men  and  close  to  Nature,  where  he  could  dream 
until  he  died.  He  could  not  be  perfectly  happy  even  then. 
But  it  would  "best  heal"  his  pain  if  he  could  have  only  this 
wish.  By  the  word  "bowers"  in  the  second  line  of  the  sec- 
ond stanza,  you  must  understand,  not  the  ancient  meaning 
of  the  word,  which  is  a  lady's  room,  but  the  modern  mean- 
ing, a  shady  place  of  rest  under  the  leaves  in  summer  time. 

And  how  dainty  is  the  following  little  love  song,  full  of 
words  that  sparkle  and  shine. 

How  many  times  do  I  love  thee,  dear? 
Tell  me  how  many  thoughts  there  be 
In  the  atmosphere 
Of  a  new-fallen  year, — 
Whose  white  and  sable  hours  appear 
The  latest  flake  of  Eternity. 
So  many  times  do  I  love  thee,  dear. 

How  many  times  do  I  love,  again? 
Tell  me  how  many  beads  there  are 
In  a  silver  chain 
Of  evening  rain. 
Unravelled  from  the  tumbling  main. 
And  threading  the  eye  of  a  yellow  star, — 
So  many  times  do  I  love  again ! 

Eternity  is  here  represented  as  showering  or  snowing  days 
and  years,  as  the  "flake"  beautifully  suggests;  and  you  can 
take  "sable"  or  black  hours  in  this  imagery  to  represent  the 
shadow  of  the  white  day,  as  a  snowflake  in  falling  bears  its 
shadow  with  it.  The  second  stanza  is  still  more  exquisite 
with  its  simile  of  silver  beads  for  lines  of  falling  rain.  "Un- 
ravelled from  the  tumbling  main"  refers,  of  course,  to  the 
fact  that  the  source  of  all  rain  is  really  the  sea.  Lines  of 
rain  passing  across  the  light  of  a  star  or  planet  might  very 
well  remind  a  poet  of  the  effect  of  thread  passing  through 
a  needle-eye.     You  must  notice  that  all  these  images  are 


204  THOMAS  LOVELL  BEDDOES 

strange  and  new,  and  this  quality  of  strangeness  infuses  it- 
self through  the  whole  of  the  work  of  Beddoes.  At  present 
the  appreciation  of  this  poet  is  only  beginning,  but  before 
long  it  is  likely  that  you  will  often  find  him  quoted  from, 
and  you  will  not  regret  the  time  given  to  this  little  notice  of 
him. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

Last  term  I  promised  you  a  lecture  upon  those  two  minor 
schools  of  Victorian  poets  respectively  called  the  Spas- 
modic and  the  Pre-Raphaelite.  We  shall  begin  today  a 
short  lecture  on  the  Spasmodic  school,  which  you  know  even 
less  about  than  about  the  other.  Already  I  have  told  you 
that  the  sarcastic  term  of  "Spasmodic"  must  not  be  taken 
literally,  that  it  was  unjust,  and  that  the  school,  although 
having  no  great  sustained  force,  did  some  good  work  and 
must  not  be  despised.  Some  of  the  best  examples  of  that 
work  have  found  their  way  into  the  best  collections  of  Vic- 
torian poems,  which  is  proof  positive  that  the  school  has 
merit.  If  it  could  not  live — that  was  only  because  its  key- 
note was  strong  emotion,  and  you  can  not  keep  up  such  a 
tone  indefinitely.  The  school  exhausted  itself  at  an  early 
day. 

I  am  not  quite  sure  of  being  able  to  define  for  you  accu- 
rately by  any  list  of  names,  the  composition  of  that  school. 
Many  who  did  work  for  it  can  not  be  said  to  have  belonged  to 
it  for  more  than  a  very  short  time.  Without  any  doubt  I 
should  have  to  put  Miss  Barrett  (Mrs.  Browning)  into  that 
school,  and  yet  she  occasionally  rose  above  it.  I  should 
have  to  put  Owen  Meredith  into  the  same  class,  for  ex- 
ample— and  Owen  Meredith  nevertheless  worked  in  an 
entirely  different  direction.  Alexander  Smith  has  been 
called  one  of  the  Spasmodics;  but  I  can  show  you  some  of 
his  work  that  is  scarcely  inferior  to  corresponding  work  of 
Tennyson's.  And  then  there  is  James  Thomson,  the  great- 
est of  English  pessimistic  poets,  the  only  man  in  English 
literature  whom  we  can  fairly  compare  with  the  Italian  Gia- 
como  Leopardi.     I  think  you  have  heard  of  Leopardi  as  par- 

205 


206  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

ticularly  famous  among  pessimistic  poets;  but  I  think  that 
Thomson,  in  spite  of  his  want  of  education,  is  much  more 
remarkable  for  the  force  of  his  pessimism  than  the  delicate 
Italian  sufferer.  Well,  as  I  have  said,  Thomson  has  been 
called  a  Spasmodic;  but  there  is  a  dignity  and  massive 
power  in  much  of  his  work  which  cannot  be  called  spasmodic 
at  all.     It  would  be  truer  to  call  it  Miltonic. 

In  fact,  we  must  consider  that  the  appellation  Spasmodic 
refers  to  the  faults  of  the  school.  The  meaning  of  the  word 
"spasmodic"  is,  as  I  told  you,  excess  of  emotion  wrought  up 
to  the  point  of  morbidness  or  sickness.  But  this  does  not 
mean  that  emotion  is  to  be  condemned  because  it  is  too 
strong.  On  the  contrary  such  emotionalism,  in  real  life,  in- 
dicates weakness,  sickness,  disease  of  the  nerves,  loss  of  will 
power.  An  emotion  cannot  be  too  strong  for  artistic  use; 
see  the  tremendous  and  terrible  display  of  passion  in  Shakes- 
peare's plays,  incomparably  stronger  than  anything  in  the 
Spasmodic  school  of  poetry.  But  such  passions,  when  ar- 
tistically expressed,  come  like  sudden  storms  and  as  quickly 
pass;  for  they  are  the  passions  of  powerful  and  healthy  men 
and  women.  Not  so  in  the  case  of  sickly  or  mawkish  feel- 
ing; that  is  long-drawn  and  wearisome  like  the  crying  of  a 
fretful  child,  or  like  the  complaining  of  a  sick  man  whose 
nerves  are  out  of  order.  In  the  case  of  a  child  crying  for  a 
good  reason,  we  are  all  sorry,  and  we  do  our  best  to  com- 
fort the  child;  but  if  the  child  continues  to  cry  long  after 
the  pain  is  over,  we  become  tired,  and  think  that  it  looks 
very  ugly  as  it  cries.  And  if  the  child  persists  in  crying  for 
another  half  hour,  we  suspect  a  malicious  intention  and  be- 
come angry  with  the  child.  Now  the  Spasmodic  poets 
make  us  angry  in  exactly  the  same  way;  they  cry  without 
reason.  There  is  a  temptation  to  do  the  same  thing  in  the 
case  of  almost  all  young  students  who  have  the  two  gifts 
of  poetical  sensibility  and  imagination ;  when  they  begin  to 
treat  of  a  pathetic  subject,  they  are  very  likely  to  become 
too  pathetic.     That  is  partly  because  they  are  young,  and 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  207 

have  not  yet  had  time  to  learn  the  literary  secret  that  emo- 
tion must  be  compressed  like  air  to  serve  an  artistic  object. 
You  know  that  the  more  you  can  compress  the  air  the  more 
powerful  it  becomes,  and  in  mechanics,  compressed  air  is 
one  of  the  great  motive  forces.  Emotion  in  literature  is,  in 
exactly  the  same  way,  a  motive  force;  but  you  must  com- 
press it  to  get  the  power.  This  the  poets  of  the  Spasmodic 
school  refuse  to  do. 

Nevertheless  they  obtained  immediate,  though  brief, 
popularity — which  encouraged  them  to  cry  still  louder  than 
before.  But  why*?  Simply  because  to  persons  of  uncul- 
tured taste  the  higher  zones  of  emotion  are  out  of  reach. 
Their  nerves  are  somewhat  dull;  they  are  moved  by  very 
simple  things,  and  would  not  be  moved  at  all  perhaps  by 
great  things.  Everywhere  there  is  a  public  of  this  kind,  to 
whom  lachrymose  emotion  and  mawkish  sentiment  give  the 
same  kind  of  pleasure  that  black,  red  and  blazing  yellow 
give  to  the  eyes  of  little  children  and  savages.  In  Eng- 
land this  public  is  particularly  large.  But  after  all,  it  is 
capable  of  learning,  and  it  gets  tired  at  last  of  what  is  not 
good,  just  as  an  intelligent  child  is  able  to  learn,  after  a 
time,  that  certain  colours  are  vulgar  and  others  gentle. 
When  the  English  public  learned  the  faults  of  what  they 
were  admiring,  they  dropped  the  Spasmodics  and  forgot 
their  beauties  as  well  as  their  faults.  But  there  are  beau- 
ties which  ought  not  to  be  forgotten ;  and  some  of  these  are 
to  be  found  in  the  work  of  Sydney  Dobell. 

Sydney  Dobell  was  the  son  of  a  wine  merchant,  and 
himself  became  a  wine  dealer,  which  he  remained  during 
the  greater  part  of  his  life.  He  was  well  educated,  and 
with  a  better  conception  of  art  might  have  done  very  good 
things.  As  it  is,  nobody  can  read  the  whole  of  his  poetry 
without  disliking  him;  it  is  too  mawkish.  This  was  not 
the  result  of  bad  training.  It  was  the  expression  of  a  be- 
lief prevalent  in  certain  literary  circles  of  the  time,  that 
Tennyson  and  his  followers  were  too  cold,  and  that  a  more 


208  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

emotional  school  of  poetry  was  needed.  The  Pre-Raphael- 
ite circle  had  the  same  opinion.  The  opinion  was  right. 
But  while  the  Pre-Raphaelite  went  to  work  in  the  right 
direction  to  improve  upon  the  methods  of  the  earlier  Ro- 
mantics, the  Spasmodics  went  to  work  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion. They  exaggerated  pathos  without  perceiving  that  the 
more  room  given  to  it,  the  weaker  it  becomes.  Neverthe- 
less, before  they  failed  they  succeeded  in  giving  a  few 
beautiful  things  to  English  anthologies;  and  several  of  these 
are  by  Dobell. 

Out  of  the  mass  of  Dobell's  work  I  think  that  there  are 
really  only  three  first  class  pieces,  although  the  new  Oxford 
anthology  makes  a  different  choice.  I  have  no  alternative 
but  to  exercise  my  own  judgment;  and  I  give  the  preference 
to  the  pieces  entitled,  "Tommy's  Dead,"  "How's  My  Boy?" 
and  the  queer  little  ballad  said  to  have  inspired  the  refrain 
of  Rossetti's  wonderful  "Sister  Helen." 

I  shall  first  quote  from  "Tommy's  Dead."  This  poem 
represents  the  grief  of  a  father  for  the  loss  of  his  favourite 
son.  The  father  is  a  farmer,  a  very  old  man,  and  weak 
in  his  mind.  All  the  poem  I  shall  not  quote;  it  has  the 
fault  of  being  very  much  too  long.  But  the  best  parts  of 
it  are  powerful  and  striking. 

You  may  give  over  plough,  boys, 
You  may  take  the  gear  to  the  stead ; 
All  the  sweat  of  your  brow,  boys, 
Will  never  get  beer  and  bread. 
The  seed's  waste,  I  know,  boys, 
There's  not  a  blade  will  grow,  boys, 
'Tis  cropped  out,  I  trow,  boys, 
And  Tommy's  dead. 

So  the  poem  opens.  The  old  man  is  working  in  the  field 
with  his  sons,  and  suddenly  hearing  the  news  of  the  death 
of  his  favourite,  is  filled  with  despair.  It  seems  to  him 
that  life  is  not  worth  living,  that  it  is  quite  useless  to  work 
any  more,  that  everything  is  all  wrong  in  the  world.     He 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  209 

wants  his  sons  to  sell  the  spare  horse;  he  thinks  the  cow 
will  die;  he  wants  the  hired  men  and  women  paid  off  and 
sent  away.  Evidently  he  is  becoming  crazed.  In  the 
fourth  stanza  the  fact  appears  without  any  question,  for  he 
begins  to  talk  to  the  ghost  of  his  long  dead  daughter  whom 
he  thinks  he  sees  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  floor.  Then 
visions  come  thick  before  him,  and  in  the  fifth  section  of 
the  poem  these  visions  are  described  in  a  manner  not  to  be 
easily  forgotten.     All  the  strength  of  the  poem  is  here: 

There's  something  not  right,  boys, 

But  I  think  it's  not  in  my  head, 

I've  kept  my  precious  sight,  boys, —  t 

The  Lord  be  hallowed. 

Outside  and  in 

The  ground  is  cold  to  my  tread, 

The  hills  are  wizen  and  thin, 

The  sky  is  shrivelled  and  shred; 

The  hedges  down  by  the  loan 

I  can  count  them  bone  by  bone, 

The  leaves  are  open  and  spread ; 

But  I  see  the  teeth  of  the  land, 

And  hands  like  a  dead  man's  hand 

And  the  eyes  of  a  dead  man's  head. 

There  is  nothing  but  cinders  and  sand, 

The  rat  and  the  mouse  have  fled, 

And  the  summer's  empty  and  cold; 

O'er  valley  and  wold 

Wherever   I  turn  my  head 

There's  a  mildew  and  a  mould, 

The  sun's  going  out  overhead 

And  I'm  very  old, 

And  Tommy's  dead! 

The  most  powerful  line  in  this  quotation  is  about  the 
"teeth  of  the  land."  One  never  forgets  that  after  reading 
the  poem.  It  is  a  scriptural  idea ;  the  old  farmer  remembers 
his  Bible  and  the  words  of  the  old  Hebrew  prophets  about 
the  land  that  devours  nations.  Only,  in  his  weakness  and 
half  madness  these  memories  of  the  Bible  take  strange  shapes 


210  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

in  his  old  brain  and  inspire  horrible  fancies.  Now  the 
land  seems  to  him  a  vast  skull,  the  corpse  of  something, 
noseless  and  eyeless  and  cheekless,  showing  its  hideous  teeth. 
Even  the  forms  of  the  trees  become  skeletons  to  his  fancy, 
and  the  branches  are  bones.  Notice  that  the  choice  of  words 
in  these  lines  is  very  fine,  and  very  successful  in  giving  the 
weird  impression  desired.  I  refer  particularly  to  the  words 
"wizen"  and  "thin,"  as  applied  to  the  fancied  appearance 
of  the  sky.  And  after  this  the  poem  goes  on  one,  two, 
three,  four,  five  and  six  weary  stanzas,  any  one  of  which 
could  be  spared.  If  the  poet  had  stopped  at  the  part  where 
I  have  stopped,  the  poem  would  have  lost  nothing.  For 
nothing  could  be  more  pathetic,  more  weird,  more  terrible 
than  the  vision  of  the  changed  world  to  the  eyes  of  the 
despairing  father;  and  anything  added  thereafter  can  only 
weaken  the  force  of  what  has  gone  before. 

The  same  fault  exists  to  a  less  degree  in  the  piece  entitled 
"How's  My  Boy?"  The  questioner  is  the  mother,  who  has 
been  made  insane  by  the  loss  of  her  sailor  son.  She  cannot 
understand  that  he  is  dead;  whenever  a  ship  comes  into  the 
harbour,  she  runs  down  to  ask  the  sailors  for  her  boy.  Most 
of  them  know  her,  and  answer  her  fitly  and  kindly;  but 
one  day  a  strange  ship  comes,  and  she  happens  to  question 
a  man  who  does  not  know  her  story. 

"Ho,  sailor  of  the  sea! 

How's  my  boy — my  boy?" 

"What's  your  boy's  name,  good  wife, 

And  in  what  good  ship  sailed  he  ?" 

"My  boy  John  — 

He  that  went  to  sea — 

What  care  I  for  the  ship,  sailor? 

My  boy's  my  boy  to  me. 

You  come  back  from  the  sea, 

And  not  know  my  John  ? 

I  might  as  well  have  asked  some  landsman 

Yonder  down  in  the  town. 

There  not  an  ass  in  all  the  parish 

But  he  knows  my  John." 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  211 

And  she  begins  to  reproach  him  in  a  loud  voice  for  not 
knowing  her  son.  "But,  my  good  woman,"  he  says,  "how 
can  I  answer  you  unless  you  tell  me  the  name  of  the  ship'"? 
After  a  long  time  she  tells  him  that  his  ship  was  called 
The  Jolly  Briton.     He  tells  her  not  to  talk  so  loud — 

"Speak  low,  woman !  speak  low !" 
"And  why  should  I  speak  low,  sailor, 
About  my  own  boy  John? 
If  I  was  loud  as  I  am  proud 
I'd  sing  him  over  the  town, 
Why  should  I  speak  low,  sailor?" 
"That  good  ship  went  down." 

"How's  my  boy,  my  boy  ? 

What  care  I  for  the  ship,  sailor? 

I  was  never  aboard  her. 

Be  she  afloat  or  be  she  aground, 

Sinking  or  swimming,  I'll  be  bound 

Her  owners  can  afford  her ! 

I  say,  How's  my  John?" 

"Every  man  on  board  went  down, 

Every  man  aboard  her." 

"How's  my  boy,  my  boy? 
What  care  I  for  the  men,  sailor  ? 
I'm  not  their  mother — 
How's  my  boy,  my  boy  ? 
Tell  me  of  him  and  no  other! 
How's  my  boy,  my  boy?" 

This  is  a  strong  feat,  and  deserves  its  place  in  an  an- 
thology. The  power  of  it  depends  better  upon  the  reading 
— you  must  know  where  to  place  the  accents.  If  a  skilful 
reader  recites  this  piece,  the  pathos  of  it  becomes  almost 
terrible.  Still,  it  might  have  been  shortened  with  good 
effect;  there  are  at  least  half  a  dozen  superfluous  lines  and 
a  number  of  useless  repetitions.  I  shall  not  quote  the  ballad 
of  "Keith  of  Ravelston" — you  will  find  it  in  Palgrave's 
Anthology,  if  you  wish  to  read  it,  and  it  falls  a  little  short 
of  being  great.     The  quotations  which  I  have  given  will 


212  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

explain  to  you  the  method  of  Sydney  Dobell.  He  generally 
takes  a  death  bed  scene  or  a  tragedy  of  some  kind,  and  heaps 
up  the  sorrow  at  wearisome  length.  What  I  have  given 
you  represents  his  very  best. 

But  the  best  of  Alexander  Smith  is  much  greater  than 
this.  Alexander  Smith  was  at  one  time  thought  to  be  al- 
most as  great  as  Tennyson — which  was  a  mistake.  He  was 
not  a  fortunate  man,  and  became  an  author  almost  by  acci- 
dent. He  was  a  pattern  designer  in  Glasgow,  where  he 
composed  his  first  poems,  and  these  immediately  attracted 
attention  to  him.  Friends  procured  him  the  position  of 
secretary  to  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  a  position  which 
he  held  until  his  death.  He  died  quite  young,  of  consump- 
tion. Perhaps  his  long  painful  illness  prevented  him  from 
becoming  great.  Whatever  harsh  criticisms  have  been  made 
upon  the  faults  of  Alexander  Smith,  I  am  quite  sure  of 
one  thing, — that  he  actually  wrote  one  poem  well  worthy 
to  be  compared  with  Tennyson's  lyrical  splendour.  The 
subject  of  the  poem  is  the  city  of  Glasgow.  Reading  this 
superb  composition,  one  cannot  help  strongly  regretting  the 
early  death  of  the  mind  capable  of  composing  it.  It  is  an 
unforgettable  poem;  and  it  expresses  the  terrors  and  gloom 
and  grandeur  of  a  great  manufacturing  city  better  than  any 
other  poem  in  the  English  language. 

Sing,  poet,  'tis  a  merry  world ; 

That  cottage  smoke  is  rolled  and  curled 

In  sport,  that  every  moss 
Is  happy,  every  inch  of  soil ; — 
Before  me  runs  a  road  of  toil 

With  my  grave  cut  across. 
Sing,  trailing  showers  and  breezy  downs, — 
I  know  the  tragic  hearts  of  towns. 

City !     I  am  true  son  of  thine ; 

Ne'er  dwelt  I  where  great  mornings  shine 

Around  the  bleating  pens ; 
Ne'er  by  the  rivulets  I  strayed, 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  213 

And  ne'er  upon  my  childhood  weighed 
The  silence  of  the  glens. 
Instead    of   shores    where   ocean    beats, 
I  hear  the  ebb  and  flow  of  streets. 

Black  labour  draws  his  weary  waves, 
Into  their  secret-moaning  caves ; 

But  with  the  morning  light 
That  sea  again  will  overflow 
With  a  long,  weary  sound  of  woe, 

Again  to  faint  in  night. 
Wave  am  I  in  that  sea  of  woes, 
Which,  night  and  morning,  ebbs  and  flows. 

This  fine  introduction  promises  well,  and  you  will  find 
that  the  promise  is  fulfilled.  The  poet  intends  to  tell  us 
about  the  sorrow  and  pain  of  city  life,  as  experienced  by 
himself.  He  does  not  know  much  about  the  country,  but 
he  speaks  with  mockery  of  the  poet  who  talks  about  the 
beautiful  smoke  rising  up  from  the  cottage  of  poor  country 
.labourers,  as  if  the  labourers  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  enjoy 
themselves — he  laughs  at  the  poets  of  Nature,  who  talk 
about  birds  and  flowers  and  trees  as  supremely  happy.  For 
his  knowledge  of  towns  has  taught  him  the  law  of  life, 
which  is  Pain;  and  he  knows  that  all  living  creatures  must 
toil  and  suffer  while  they  live.  How  very  fine  is  that  liken- 
ing of  his  own  life-path  to  a  long  road  ending  in  a  grave. 

To  him  the  life  of  a  great  city  is  like  a  sea, — a  black  sea 
of  pain,  in  which  every  individual  is  but  a  wave.  Every 
morning  the  tide  of  that  sea  rises,  as  the  myriads  go  forth 
from  their  homes  to  toil;  in  the  evening  that  tide  ebbs,  as 
the  myriads  return  to  their  houses.  This  simile  is  very 
grand,  but  you  can  not  understand  how  grand  it  is  until 
you  know  the  gloom  and  thunder  and  sorrow  of  a  great 
Western  city.  You  can  not  imagine  it  from  anything  that 
you  have  seen  in  Japan.  Here,  in  our  great  city,  all  is 
light  and  sun,  and  there  are  trees  in  the  streets,  and  gardens 
about  the  houses;  and  the  country  is  so  near  you  that  you 


214  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

can  walk  out  to  the  fields  any  afternoon.  But  in  a  great 
manufacturing  city  like  Glasgow,  the  streets  are  mountains 
of  masonry,  blackened  with  the  smoke  of  factories,  and 
between  the  cliffs  of  the  gloomy  houses  the  thronging  of 
the  life  of  the  place  is  like  the  rushing  of  a  river,  with 
ceaseless  rollings  of  thunder.  In  any  great  manufacturing 
town  (above  all,  in  London,  the  most  awful  city  upon 
earth)  there  is  a  regular  rising  and  falling  of  the  roar  of 
its  life  in  the  morning  and  in  the  evening,  like  the  sound 
of  a  tide,  indeed,  when  heard  far  away.  So,  as  I  said,  I 
do  not  think  that  you  can  feel  the  great  power  of  the  third 
stanza,  unless  you  have  seen  and  felt  what  the  poet  had 
seen  and  felt.  In  a  city  like  that,  a  man  who  thinks  intro- 
spectingly  cannot  help  feeling  how  very  small  he  is,  how 
very  slight  his  relation  to  the  monstrous  existence  of  the 
city  itself.  He  is  only  like  one  ripple  in  a  mighty  current, 
one  wave  in  the  tide  of  the  sea.  And  in  those  dark  cities 
the  real  joys  of  bright  skies  and  green  fields  and  blossoming 
trees  are  scarcely  known,  even  to  the  rich.  Of  course  there 
are  green  fields  in  the  country,  but  the  country  is  very  far 
away;  you  can  only  go  to  it  by  railway  when  you  happen 
to  have  a  holiday,  which  is  not  often.  There  are  things 
called  gardens,  but  the  walls  about  them  are  so  high  that 
the  sunshine  cannot  reach  the  flowers  there. 

I  dwelt  within  a  gloomy  court, 
Wherein  did  never  sunbeam  sport, 

Yet  there  my  heart  was  stirred, 
My  very  blood  did  dance  and  thrill, 
When  on  my  narrow  window-sill 

Spring  lighted  like  a  bird. 
Poor  flowers !  I  watched  them  pine  for  weeks, 
With  leaves  as  pale  as  human  cheeks. 

That  is  to  say,  as  the  cheeks  of  dwellers  in  such  cities, 
who  are  proverbially  pale.  There  is  no  exaggeration  in  this 
verse;  it  is  actually  true  that  the  leaves  of  the  trees  in  such 
city  courts  and  gardens  become  unnaturally  pale  for  want 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  215 

of  fresh  air  and  sun.  The  verse  relates  to  the  poet's  child- 
hood. But  later  on  he  did  have  a  short  holiday  in  the 
country;  he  saw  the  sea  and  he  saw  the  mountains,  and 
the  memory  of  that  happy  day  remains  with  him  all  his  life : 

Afar,  one  summer  I  was  borne; 
Through  golden  vapours  of  the  morn 

I  heard  the  hills  of  sheep : 
I  trod  with  a  wild  ecstasy 
The  bright  fringe  of  the  living  sea: 

And  on  a  ruined  keep 
I  sat  and  watched  an  endless  plain 
Blackened  beneath  the  gloom  of  rain. 

O,  fair  the  lightly  sprinkled  waste 
O'er  which  a  laughing  shower  has  raced ! 

O  fair  the  April  shoots ! 
O,  fair  the  woods  on  summer  days, 
While  a  blue  hyacinthine  haze 

Is  dreaming  round  the  roots ! 
In  thee,  O  city!  I  discern 
Another  beauty,  sad  and  stern. 

The  scenery  described  is  near  Glasgow,  apparently — a 
mountain  region  by  the  sea,  where  sheep  are  herded,  and 
where  there  is  the  ruin  of  an  ancient  castle.  To  ascend  to 
the  top  of  the  tower  and  from  there  to  watch  a  rain  shower 
pass  over  the  plain  below,  is  a  very  delightful  experience 
for  a  child.  As  for  the  word  "hyacinth,"  I  think  you  have 
noticed,  in  the  time  of  spring  vapours,  that  the  shadows  of 
the  woods  seem  at  a  distance  to  look  blue,  and  that  the 
dark  spaces  between  the  trunks  seem  to  be  filled  with  deep- 
blue  mists.  The  beauty  of  the  expression  "dreaming,"  I 
need  not  explain.  Beautiful  was  this  experience  of  moun- 
tain and  of  sea  to  the  city-dweller.  And  yet  he  thinks  that 
the  city  is  beautiful  too — though  beautiful  in  another  way, 
with  a  sad  and  terrible  beauty.  To  understand  some  of 
the  parts  of  what  follow  you  should  remember  that  Glasgow 
is  one  of  the  centres  of  the  great  ship-building  industry. 


216  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

Draw  thy  fierce  streams  of  blinding  ore, 
Smite  on  a  thousand  anvils,  roar 

Down  to  the  harbour-bars; 
Smoulder  in  smoky  sunsets,  flare 
On  rainy  nights,  with  street  and  square 

Lie  empty  to  the  stars. 
From  terrace  proud  to  alley  base 
I  know  thee  as  my  mother's  face. 

When  sunset  bathes  thee  in  its  gold 

In  wreaths  of  bronze  thy  sides  are  rolled, 

Thy  smoke  is  dusky  fire; 
And  from  the  glory  round  thee  poured 
A  sun-beam  like  an  angel's  sword 

Shivers  upon  a  spire. 
Thus  have  I  watched  thee,  Terror!     Dream! 
While  the  blue  Night  crept  up  the  stream. 

The  wild  train  plunges  in  the  hills, 
She  shrieks  across  the  midnight  rills; 

Steams  through  the  shifting  glare, 
The  roar  and  flap  of  foundry  fires 
That  shake  with  light  the  sleeping  shires ; 

And  on  the  moorlands  bare, 
He  sees  afar  a  crown  of  light 
Hung  o'er  thee  in  the  hollow  night. 

At  midnight  when  thy  suburbs  lie 
As  silent  as  a  noonday  sky, 

When  larks  with  heat  are  mute, 
I  love  to  linger  on  thy  bridge 
All  lonely  as  a  mountain  ridge, 

Disturbed  but  by  my  foot ; 
While  the  black  lazy  stream  beneath 
Steals  from  its  far-off  wilds  of  heath. 

Have  you  ever  noticed,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  some 
great  factory,  the  effect  of  sunlight  upon  the  smoky  air? 
I  am  not  sure  whether  you  can  see  anywhere  in  Japan  what 
is  described  in  these  lines,  to  the  same  degree;  but  perhaps 
you  have  noticed  that  sunlight  in  smoky  air,  especially  at 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  217 

sunset  time,  takes  colours  of  bronze  and  metals.  The  effect 
of  sunset  over  a  great  smoky  city  like  Glasgow  is,  at  times, 
tremendous;  the  unnaturalness  and  grimness  of  the  colours 
have  indeed  a  particular  splendour,  but  it  is  an  infernal 
or  awful  splendour.  In  one  of  the  stanzas  notice  the  ex- 
cellent use  of  the  verb  "flap"  in  describing  the  motion  of 
great  sheets  of  fire.  The  description  of  the  light  reflected 
skyward  by  a  city  at  night  you  will  be  able  to  appreciate. 
All  these  sights  of  the  city  at  sunrise,  at  noon-day,  at 
sunset,  and  at  night,  are  dear  to  the  city  dweller,  because 
they  are  a  part  of  his  every-day  existence.  Also  he  loves 
the  sight  of  the  harbour  with  its  myriads  of  masts,  thick 
as  pines  in  a  forest.  I  need  not,  however,  quote  all  the 
poem  to  you — only  the  best  part  of  it.  Well,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  finds  some  beauty  in  the  city — a  beauty  that  pre- 
vents him  from  regretting  the  country  too  much.  But  there 
.was  a  time  when  he  wished  very,  very  much  to  go  and 
live  in  the  country.  Not  for  his  own  sake  alone,  but  espe- 
cially for  the  sake  of  another  person.  He  dreamed  of  a 
cottage  near  to  the  sea,  somewhere  upon  the  beautiful  hills. 
But  all  that  wishing  is  past;  it  was  only  a  dream.  He  is 
going  to  tell  us  why: 

Afar,  the  banner  of  the  year 
Unfurls;  but  dimly  prisoned  here, 

'Tis  only  when  I  greet 
A  dropt  rose  lying  in  my  way, 
A  butterfly  that  flutters  gay 

Athwart  the  noisy  street, 
I  know  the  happy  summer  smiles, 
Around  thy  suburbs,  miles  on  miles. 

'Twere  neither  paean  now,  nor  dirge, 
The  flash  and  thunder  of  the  surge 

On  flat  sands  wide  and  bare: 
No  haunting  joy  or  anguish  dwells, 
In  the  green  light  of  sunny  dells 

Or  in  the  starry  air. 


S18  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

Alike  to  me  the  desert  flower, 

The  rainbow  laughing  o'er  the  shower. 

While  o'er  thy  walls  the  darkness  sails, 
I  lean  against  the  churchyard  rails; 

Up  in  the  midnight  towers 
The  belfried  spire,  the  street  is  dead, 
I  hear  in  silence  overhead 

The  clang  of  iron  hours: 
It  moves  me  not, — I  know  her  tomb 
Is  yonder  in  the  shapeless  gloom. 

There  is  the  real  secret  of  his  love  for  the  city;  the  tomb 
of  the  woman  to  whom  he  had  been  betrothed  is  in  the 
heart  of  it.  For  her  it  was  that  he,  in  other  days,  had 
longed  for  the  sea,  the  bright  woods,  the  windy  hills.  But 
now  what  does  he  care  for  the  sea  or  the  flowers?  Alone, 
what  happiness  could  the  country  give  him?  Please  ob- 
serve the  great  force  and  beauty  of  those  three  lines  de- 
scribing the  bursting  of  waves  upon  a  beach.  The  word 
"paean,"  I  think  you  know,  meant  a  Greek  hymn  of  joy  or 
thanksgiving.  What  the  poet  means  is  that  there  are  two 
aspects  of  the  splendour  of  the  sea,  one  joyous,  the  other 
melancholy,  but  that  neither  of  these  aspects  could  any 
longer  interest  him.  All  the  memories  and  joys  and  pains 
of  his  life  attach  him  to  the  city,  and  it  is  now,  for  these 
reasons,  the  only  deep  pleasure  in  the  world.  He  thus 
addresses  it: 

All  raptures  of  this  mortal  breath, 
Solemnities  of  life  and  death, 

Dwell  in  thy  noise  alone: 
Of  me  thou  hast  become  a  part — 
Some  kindred  with  my  human  heart 

Lives  in  thy  streets  of  stone: 
For  we  have  been  familiar  more 
Than  galley-slave  and  weary  oar. 

The  beech  is  dipt  in  wine ;  the  shower 
Is  burnished;  on  the  swinging  flower 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  219 

The  latest  bee  doth  sit; 
The  low  sun  stares  through  dust  of  gold, 
And  o'er  the  darkening  heath  and  wold 

The  large  ghost-moth  doth  flit. 
In  every  orchard  Autumn  stands, 
With  apples  in  his  golden  hands. 

But  all  the  sights  and  sounds  are  strange; 
Then  wherefore  from  thee  should  I  range  ? 

Thou  hast  my  kith  and  kin ; 
My  childhood,  youth  and  manhood  brave, 
Thou  hast  that  unforgotten  grave 

Within  the  central  din. 
A  sacredness  of  love  and  death 
Dwells  in  thy  noise  and  smoky  breath. 

No  man  has  ever  more  deeply  expressed  the  emotion  of 
love  for  his  native  city.  A  few  expressions  may  need  ex- 
planation— for  example,  the  term  "galley-slave."  You 
know  that  ancient  ships  were  moved  not  only  with  sails 
but  with  oars — indeed,  up  to  the  seventeenth  century  such 
oar  ships  were  still  in  use.  The  Northern  race,  better  sea- 
men, discarded  them  at  a  much  earlier  date.  The  Greeks 
and  Romans  were  first  to  use  them  on  a  large  scale  in  war, 
and  ships  of  war  moved  with  oars  were  called  war-galleys. 
Afterwards,  in  more  modern  times,  as  free  men  could  not 
be  readily  induced  to  row  such  great  ships,  criminals  were 
employed  for  such  work — considered  the  most  terrible  work 
which  a  man  could  be  obliged  to  do.  Men  were  condemned 
to  "the  galleys"  just  as  they  are  now  condemned  to  prison 
for  life.  Thus  "galley-slave"  passed  into  colloquial  speech 
as  a  symbolic  term  for  anybody  obliged  to  work  very  hard 
every  day  at  the  same  thing,  without  hope  of  respite.  In 
modern  English  stories,  even  of  the  present  time,  we  often 
find  clerks  who  are  obliged  to  work  very  hard  calling  them- 
selves galley-slaves.  And  here  the  poet  speaks  of  his  city 
as  a  galley,  in  which  he  is  obliged  to  row  very  hard  every 
day;  but  it  is  his  home,  and  in  spite  of  the  hard  work  he 


220  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

loves  it  so  much  that  he  can  not  bear  to  think  of  going 
away  from  it. 

The  second  of  the  three  stanzas  above  quoted  begins  with 
a  rather  difficult  line,  "The  beech  is  dipt  in  wine."  You 
must  understand  this  to  mean,  "The  beech  tree,  standing  in 
the  rich  yellow  light  of  the  autumn  sun,  looks  as  if  it  had 
been  dipt  in  yellow  wine."  "The  shower  is  burnished" 
means  simply,  "The  rain,  as  it  falls  against  the  sunset  light, 
glitters  like  a  shower  of  gold."  These  are  the  only  diffi- 
culties. Perhaps  you  have  never  seen  the  word  "ghost- 
moth"  in  English  before.  I  believe  that  several  kinds  of 
insects  are  called  by  this  name;  but  I  imagine  that  the  poet 
refers  to  what  is  more  usually  called  "the  death's-head 
moth" — that  is,  the  skull-moth,  because  on  the  back  of  the 
creature  there  is  distinctly  marked  the  form  of  a  skull.  It 
is  a  large  moth,  and  has  the  curious  habit  of  stealing  honey 
from  bees.  There  are  several  curious  superstitions  con- 
nected with  it.  The  poet  mentions  it  merely  because  it  is 
particularly  an  autumn  insect.  What  he  means  to  say  is 
that  now  in  the  country  all  things  are  particularly  beau- 
tiful to  see.  It  is  harvest  time;  the  fields  are  full  of  ripe 
grain,  the  orchards  are  full  of  fruits,  the  hives  are  full  of 
honey,  and  the  honey-stealing  moth  has  begun  to  fly  abroad. 
I  believe  that  this  is  the  best  example  I  could  give  you  of 
Alexander  Smith.  All  his  work  is  not  to  be  judged  by  the 
excellence  of  this  single  example;  but  it  exemplifies  the 
best  of  his  powers,  so  prematurely  numbed  by  death. 

I  shall  now  turn  to  the  work  of  Arthur  O'Shaughnessy, 
who  but  partly  belongs  to  the  group.  He  is  not  always  a 
Spasmodic,  but  he  is  always  a  Rhapsodist,  and  this  is  the 
best  time  and  place  in  which  to  quote  from  him.  He  was, 
during  most  of  his  life,  a  clerk  in  the  British  Museum — at 
first  only  an  assistant  librarian,  later  an  assistant  in  the 
department  of  natural  history.  Like  all  the  members  of 
this  school  he  was  nervous,  sensitive,  sickly,  and  to  a  great 
extent  unhappy.     He  sang  of  his  own  pains,  mostly;  and 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  221 

like  James  Thomson,  he  sang  best  when  he  was  most  un- 
happy. I  need  not  quote  his  best  piece,  "The  Silences," 
because  I  had  occasion  to  cite  it  in  another  lecture.  I  am 
going  to  give  quotations  from  here  and  there,  which  will 
show  you  the  original  and  rather  strange  beauty  of  his  verse. 
Of  other  examples  you  will  find  a  large  number  in  Pal- 
grave's  Anthology. 

The  influence  of  Swinburne  is  especially  noticeable  in 
O'Shaughnessy,  as  it  is  noticeable  in  the  work  of  Lord  De 
Tabley;  but  O'Shaughnessy,  like  De  Tabley,  did  not  merely 
imitate  Swinburne.  He  only  felt  him,  absorbing  something 
of  his  lyrical  splendour  and  triumph  to  express  it  in  new 
forms  of  verse.  He  was  not  so  much  a  scholar  as  Lord 
De  Tabley,  but  he  had  more  original  imagination,  and  could 
produce  remarkable  effects  by  very  simple  touches.  Also, 
there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  beauty  of  his  melody; 
he  had  the  "musical  ear."  Here  is  an  example  of  his  style, 
the  first  stanza  of  the  poem  entitled  "Love's  Eternity": 

My  body  was  part  of  the  sun  and  the  dew, 

Not  a  trace  of  my  death  to  me  clave ; 
There  was  scarce  a  man  left  on  the  earth  whom  I  knew, 

And  another  was  laid  in  my  grave. 
I  was  changed  and  in  Heaven, — the  great  sea  of  blue 

Had  long  washed  my  soul  pure  in  its  wave. 

The  last  two  lines  are  surely  very  fine;  translate  them  into 
Japanese,  and  the  beauty  will  remain  untouched.  This  is 
poetry  that  will  bear  any  translation,  even  translation  into 
prose,  which  is  a  very  severe  test.  The  poem  goes  on  to 
describe  an  imaginary  meeting  in  heaven  with  the  woman 
that  was  vainly  loved  on  earth.  She  explains  all  the  sorrow 
of  the  past  to  him,  and  eternal  happiness  comes  to  both. 
Very  much  the  same  idea  is  expressed  in  another  poem  called 
"Greater  Memory,"  but  the  art  takes  a  different  form,  and 
the  merit  is  even  higher : 


222  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

In  the  heart  there  lay  buried  for  years 
Love's  story  of  passion  and  tears ; 

Of  the  heaven  that  two  had  begun, 

And  the  horror  that  tore  them  apart, 
When  one  was  love's  slayer,  but  one 
Made  a  grave  for  the  love  in  his  heart. 

The  long  years  passed  weary  and  lone, 

And  it  lay  there  and  changed  there  unknown; 
Then  one  day  from  its  innermost  place, 
In  the  shamed  and  the  ruined  love's  stead, 

Love  arose  with  a  glorified  face, 

Like  an  angel  that  comes  from  the  dead. 

The  burial  signifies  here  the  real  fact  of  death,  so  we 
must  not  take  the  heart  to  mean  merely  the  heart  of  the 
flesh ;  it  signifies  here  rather  the  mind.  The  man  has  died, 
but  ages  after,  awakening  into  another  life  he  remembers 
the  woman  he  vainly  loved,  and  meets  her  again,  and  for- 
gets all  the  sorrow. 

It  was  knowledge  of  all  that  had  been 
In  the  thought,  in  the  soul  unseen ; 

'Twas  the  word  which  the  lips  could  not  say 

To  redeem  and  recover  the  past; 
It  was  more  than  was  taken  away 
Which  the  heart  got  back  at  the  last. 

The  passion  that  lost  its  spell, 
The  rose  that  died  where  it  fell, 

The  look  that  was  looked  in  vain, 

The  prayer  that  seemed  lost  evermore, 
They  were  found  in  the  heart  again, 
With  all  that  the  heart  would  restore. 

There  is  perhaps  an  echo  of  Browning  here,  from  the 
magnificent  verse  of  "Abt  Vogler" : 

The  high  that  proved  too  high, 
The  heroics  for  earth  too  hard, 
The  passion  that  left  the  ground, 
To  lose  itself  in  the  sky, 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  223 

Are  music  sent  up  to  God 
By  the  lover  and  the  bard : 
Enough  that  he  heard  it  once — 
We  shall  hear  it  by  and  by. 

But  although  O'Shaughnessy  may  have  been  inspired  by 
these  lines  of  Browning,  there  is  an  original  soft  weirdness 
about  his  own  presentation  of  the  idea  which  lifts  him  far 
above  the  plane  of  the  mere  imitator. 

The  greater  part  of  his  poetry  is  love  poetry  and  poetry 
of  regret.  But  he  also  has  inspiration  for  other  motives — 
a  constant  longing  for  tropical  life,  a  vain  desire  to  visit 
the  land  of  eternal  summer.  Perhaps  it  is  especially  in  the 
gloom  of  London  and  the  black  damp  of  November  fogs 
that  a  poet  dreams  of  azure  islands  and  impossible  for- 
ests of  palm  trees.  He  has  several  poems  of  a  remarkable 
kind  upon  these  subjects.  The  best  is  the  poem  on  palms, 
from  which  I  may  quote  a  stanza  or  two : 

Mighty,  luminous  and  calm, 
Is  the  country  of  the  palm, 
Crowned  with  sunset  and  sunrise, 
Under  blue  unbroken  skies. 
Waving  from  green  zone  to  zone, 
Over  wonders  of  its  own ; 
Trackless,  untraversed,  unknown, 
Changeless  through  the  centuries. 


Long  red  reaches  of  the  cane, 
Yellow  winding  water-lane, 
Verdant  isle  and  amber  river, 
Lisp  and  murmur  back  again, 
And  ripe  underworlds  deliver 
Rapturous  souls  of  perfume,  hurled 
Up  to  where  green  oceans  quiver 
In  the  wide  leaves'  restless  world. 

Many  thousand  years  have  been 
And  the  sun  alone  hath  seen, 


2U  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

Like  a  high  and  radiant  ocean 
All  the  fair  palm  world  in  ocean: 
But  the  crimson  bird  hath  fed 
With  its  mate  of  equal  red, 
And  the  flower  in  soft  explosion 
With  the  flower  hath  been  wed. 

This  is  music  and  colour  indeed,  and  most  picturesque 
fancy.  The  last  two  lines  of  the  quotation  have  been  justly 
admired  by  naturalists  for  the  exquisite  use  of  the  phrase 
"soft  explosion"  to  describe  the  ripening  and  bursting  of 
the  male  flower  scattering  its  fertilizing  dust  upon  the  beau- 
tiful blossom.  But  I  must  warn  you  that  the  rest  of  the 
description  is  all  fairyland.  O'Shaughnessy  never  saw  the 
tropics,  and  there  does  not  exist  in  the  tropical  zone  any 
such  world  of  palms  as  he  describes.  Palms  have  to  struggle 
very  hard  for  existence  against  a  thousand  other  kinds  of 
tree  in  the  vast  forests  of  the  tropics.  Sometimes  we  may 
find  in  the  midst  of  the  forest  a  successful  colony  of  palms, 
and  they  are  then  worth  seeing,  for  in  order  to  reach  the 
sun  at  all  they  must  lift  their  heads  more  than  two  hundred 
feet  through  the  dense  vegetation.  A  world  of  palms,  a 
whole  forest  of  wild  palm  trees,  is  an  utter  impossibility; 
every  palm  tree  must  fight  very  hard  for  a  chance  to  live 
at  all.  You  can  find  woods  of  palm  trees  in  some  parts 
of  the  tropics,  but  they  have  been  made  by  man,  not  by 
nature.  The  excellence  of  the  poem  is  not  in  describing 
what  is  true,  but  only  in  describing  the  beautiful  imagina- 
tion of  the  writer. 

One  more  of  O'Shaughnessy' s  poems  deserves  attention 
in  the  course  of  this  lecture,  the  piece  entitled  "The  Fountain 
of  Tears."  It  is  in  one  way,  indeed,  a  typical  poem  of  this 
school;  it  pushes  the  emotion  to  the  extreme  of  rhapsody. 
But  it  has  sweet  music,  and  the  fancy  is  so  uniquely  ex- 
pressed as  to  give  it  a  peculiar  imaginative  charm.  I  need 
not  quote  any  of  the  verses  to  you,  because  you  will  find 
the  poem  in  the  second  series  of  Palgrave's  Anthology.     The 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  225 

fancy  is  that  of  a  spring,  in  some  retired  place,  made  by 
all  the  tears  of  mankind.  I  think  you  know  that  this 
imagination  is  by  no  means  new.  In  many  mythologies 
there  is  mentioned  such  a  river  or  lake  of  tears.  The  Breton 
fishermen  have  a  proverb  that  the  tears  of  women  made  the 
sea  salt.  In  Japanese  folklore  also  you  have  the  river  of 
tears.  There  is  poetry  in  all  these  fancies,  true  poetry; 
they  oblige  us  to  reflect  for  a  moment  on  the  mass  of  human 
suffering.  As  I  said,  the  fancy  is  not  new,  but  I  doubt 
whether  it  will  ever  become  commonplace.  In  O'Shaugh- 
nessy's  poem,  the  spring  of  tears  at  first  appears  to  well  up 
very  gently  and  softly,  with  a  music  in  its  flowing  that 
brings  a  strange  kind  of  consolation  to  the  hearer.  But 
gradually  the  stream  becomes  strong,  the  ripples  change  to 
waves,  the  waves  to  billowings,  and  at  last  the  flowing 
threatens  to  drown  the  world.  So  the  imagination  is  car- 
ried almost  to  the  edge  of  the  grotesque.  It  is  one  of  those 
compositions  which  come  very  close  to  the  merely  non- 
sensical, and  yet  remain  beautiful  in  a  certain  way.  One 
test  of  the  value  of  a  poem  of  this  kind  is  the  depth  of  the 
impression  that  it  makes  on  the  memory.  Now,  whoever 
reads  this  piece  will  never  forget  it,  whether  he  likes  it  or 
not;  and  that  is  tolerably  good  proof  that  it  is  above  the 
common. 

Here  I  may  close  the  subject  of  the  Spasmodic  poets. 
I  have  tried  to  show  you  that  some  of  them  produced  beau- 
tiful things;  and  I  think  they  have  been  somewhat  unjustly 
judged.  You  must  remember  that  these  men,  fighting  for 
the  expression  of  sincere  emotion  in  literature,  were  them- 
selves nearly  all  weak  men,  sick  men,  unhappy  men;  and 
many  of  their  mistakes  must  have  been  due  to  nervous 
conditions.  All  the  more  do  they  deserve  credit  for  having 
been  able  to  add  something  to  the  treasure-house  of  Eng- 
lish poetry,  especially  something  of  a  new  kind. 

Do  not,  at  the  same  time,  forget  that  their  principal 
weakness  constitutes  a  literary  object  lesson.     To  dwell 


226  THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS 

upon  an  emotion  at  an  unnecessary  length  is  always  danger- 
ous. Sustained  feeling  is  not  at  all  likely  to  be  powerful. 
The  most  powerful  emotional  poems  are  not  those  in  which 
the  sentiment  is  expressed  in  many  stanzas  or  in  many  lines. 
I  want  now  to  give  you,  in  contrast  to  the  work  of  the  real 
Spasmodics,  one  example  of  what  I  call  a  powerful  poem. 
I  do  not  know  who  wrote  it;  neither  does  anybody  else. 
I  found  it  the  other  day  in  the  recent  Oxford  Anthology. 
It  is  a  religious  poem,  a  prayer.  You  know  that  I  have 
not  much  liking  for  religious  poetry  in  general,  and  little 
sympathy  with  most  forms  of  religious  emotion.  Never- 
theless I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  I  think  this  one  of  the 
strongest  poems  of  an  emotional  kind  that  I  have  ever  seen. 
It  is  simply  entitled  "Non  Nobis," — words  taken  from  the 
old  Latin  version  of  the  first  verse  of  the  hundred  and 
fifteenth  psalm,  commencing  "Not  unto  us,  O  Lord." 

Not  unto  us,  O  Lord, 

Not  unto  us  the  rapture  of  the  day, 

The  peace  of  night,  or  Love's  divine  surprise, 

High  heart,  high  speech,  high  deeds  'mid  honouring  eyes ; 

For  at  Thy  Word 

All  these  are  taken  away. 

Not  unto  us,  O  Lord: 

To  us  thou  givest  the  scorn,  the  scourge,  the  scar, 

The  ache  of  life,  the  loneliness  of  death, 

The  insufferable  sufficiency  of  breath; 

And  with  Thy  sword 

Thou  piercest  very  far. 

Not  unto  us,  O  Lord: 

Nay,  Lord,  but  unto  her  be  all  things  given — 

My  light  and  life  and  earth  and  sky  be  blasted — 

But  let  not  all  that  wealth  of  love  be  wasted: 

Let  Hell  afford 

The  pavement  of  her  Heaven ! 

"This  is  only  a  Christian  prayer,"  perhaps  you  were 


THE  VICTORIAN  SPASMODICS  227 

beginning  to  think — "there  is  nothing  remarkable  in  it — 
except  the  fine,  strong,  sonorous  verse."  But  the  surprise 
comes  with  the  third  stanza.  This  sudden  focussing  of 
religious  emotion  upon  the  object  of  human  love  seems  to 
me  one  of  the  noblest  and  strongest  poetical  efforts  that  I 
have  ever  read.  Observe,  also,  that  the  character  of  this 
love  is  not  otherwise  indicated  than  by  its  intensity.  Is 
it  the  mother,  the  sister,  or  the  wife,  of  whom  he  is  think- 
ing? We  do  not  know;  we  cannot  even  guess.  All  we 
hear  is  the  passionate  expression  of  love  for  the  woman  who 
believes  the  man  to  be  better  than  he  really  is.  He  knows 
himself  not  good,  knows  he  deserves  no  favour,  no  mercy 
from  Heaven.  There  is  but  one  thing  that  he  feels  not 
afraid  to  pray  for.  He  dares  not  pray  for  himself,  but 
this  mother,  or  wife,  or  sister  who  loves  him — how  horrible 
would  it  be  that  she  should  find  at  some  future  time  all  her 
love  lost,  wasted  upon  an  unworthy  object!  Therefore — 
and  only  therefore — he  prays  that  "Hell  may  afford  the 
pavement  of  her  Heaven" — that  is  to  say,  that  what  should 
be  in  Hell  might  at  least  be  spared  to  form  the  pavement 
of  that  Heaven  upon  which  the  feet  of  the  woman  he  loved 
must  tread.  Every  time  you  read  that  poem  over,  the 
stronger  it  becomes.  How  different  is  this  from  merely 
sentimental  and  mawkish  poetry !     This  is  power. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  POETRY  OF  LORD  DE  TABLEY 

Our  last  lecture  was  about  a  poet  difficult  of  appreciation 
by  the  common  reader,  and  our  present  lecture  will  treat  of 
another  poet  of  the  rare  class — very  different  indeed  from 
Bridges,  but  in  some  respect  more  exquisite ;  indeed,  he  is  one 
of  the  most  exquisite  poets  even  of  a  period  which  included 
Tennyson  and  Rossetti.  Perhaps  some  of  you  have  not  even 
heard  of  his  name;  I  confess  that  he  is  not  widely  known, 
except  to  men  of  letters.  But  that  is  because  he  is  too  ex- 
quisite for  the  general  reader.  As  for  his  real  position  in 
poetry,  it  will  be  enough  to  observe  that  Tennyson,  who 
was  very  economical  about  his  admiration,  greatly  admired 
this  man;  and  in  some  respects  De  Tabley's  work  is  really 
equal  to  some  of  Tennyson's  work.  Perhaps  you  will  think 
that  we  are  taking  up  rather  difficult  poets.  This  is  true; 
but  it  seems  to  me  important  that  the  highest  poetry,  no 
matter  how  little  generally  known,  should  be  somewhat 
more  than  known  to  university  students.  A  word  about  the 
poet  himself,  who  commonly  wrote  during  his  lifetime  under 
the  name  of  Lancaster.  His  real  name  was  John  Byrne 
Leicester  Warren,  Lord  De  Tabley;  and  he  was  the  last  of 
an  illustrious  and  aristocratic  race.  He  was  born  in  1835 
and  died  in  1895 — not  quite  six  years  ago.  He  was  an 
Oxford  man,  and  a  distinguished  scholar,  not  only  in  one 
but  in  a  multitude  of  directions.  He  was  also  distinguished 
as  a  numismatist,  as  a  book-collector,  as  a  student  of 
classical  antiquities,  and  as  a  botanist.  But  he  was  one  of 
the  shyest  men  who  ever  lived,  sometimes  disappearing  alto- 
gether for  many  years  at  a  time.  In  later  life  it  was  said  of 
him  that  he  had  only  two  friends,  and  that  he  had  not  seen 
one  of  them  for  five  years  nor  the  other  for  six  years.     This 

228 


LORD  DE  TABLEY  229 

was  perhaps  partly  due  to  a  remarkably  sensitive  organiza- 
tion; but  I  have  an  idea  that  the  sensitiveness  must  have 
been  greatly  aggravated  by  life  at  English  public  schools. 
A  sensitive  boy  is  certain  to  be  made  extremely  unhappy  at 
an  English  public  school,  and  the  unhappiness  may  often  be 
of  a  kind  that  poisons  life.  The  misfortunes  of  Shelley  and 
other  distinguished  men  have  no  doubt  been  partly  due  to 
the  treatment  they  received  in  public  schools.  There  are  ex- 
ceptions, of  course,  as  in  the  case  of  a  sensitive  boy  who 
happens  to  be  uncommonly  strong  and  uncommonly  ag- 
gressive. Some  day,  when  it  is  sensibly  recognized  that  a 
boy  having  a  delicate  and  artistic  temperament  ought  not  to 
be  subjected  to  the  brutality  of  English  public  schools,  fewer 
lives  will  be  spoiled. 

Lord  De  Tabley's  peculiar  character,  however,  must  have 
been  in  part  hereditary;  his  delicacy  was  the  rare  delicacy 
we  find  in  members  of  old  princely  families  that  are  becom- 
ing extinct.  No  better  illustration  of  his  capacity  for  affec- 
tion need  be  mentioned  than  the  fact  that  when  a  college 
friend  of  his  was  accidentally  killed,  many  years  passed  be- 
fore he  recovered  from  the  grief  of  this  misfortune ;  and  even 
late  in  life,  he  could  not  bear  to  hear  the  name  of  his  dead 
friend  mentioned,  it  caused  him  too  much  pain.  To  such  a 
nature,  the  least  unkind  word  or  look,  the  least  vulgarity  or 
egotism  of  manner,  necessarily  gave  great  pain.  He  could 
not  mingle  with  men  without  hurt;  and  therefore  he  event- 
ually resigned  himself  to  doing  without  them,  locking  him- 
self up  with  his  books,  his  statues,  his  rare  coins,  and  his 
botanical  specimens.  He  was  the  friend  of  nearly  all  the 
great  poets  and  thinkers  of  the  time ;  but  he  saw  them  only 
at  long  intervals. 

Of  course  a  man  who  thus  shut  out  the  nineteenth  century 
could  not  very  well  reflect  it  in  his  work.  Lord  De  Tabley, 
although  one  of  the  latest  and  most  exquisite  poets  of  the 
century,  did  not  belong  to  it  in  feeling.  He  seems  to  have 
inherited  an  intense  love  for  the  artistic  principles  of  the 


230  LORD  DE  TABLEY 

classic  age.  He  did  not  indeed  care  for  classical  form,  as 
the  school  of  Pope  understood  it;  he  did  not  write  much  in 
the  heroic  couplet.  On  the  contrary  he  liked  better,  in- 
finitely better,  the  Elizabethan  form  and  the  later  romantic 
form;  and  the  poet  who  of  all  poets  most  influenced  him, 
even  while  shocking  him,  was  Swinburne.  What  I  mean  by 
his  affinity  to  eighteenth  century  poetry  is  the  importance 
which  he  attaches  to  the  form  of  the  rhymes,  to  the  melody 
of  the  verse,  quite  irrespective  of  subject  and  feeling.  The 
modern  high  art  in  poetry  makes  the  form  the  secondary,  not 
the  primary,  consideration.  In  the  eighteenth  century  the 
rule  was  exactly  the  opposite ;  and  Lord  De  Tabley  observed 
that  rule.  Since  he  was  in  all  his  heart  and  soul  a  true 
poet,  the  result  was  beautiful;  for  we  find  the  thought  as 
exquisite  as  the  verse  in  the  best  of  his  work.  You  must 
not  expect,  however,  much  original  thought  from  Lord  De 
Tabley;  he  was  not  a  great  thinker.  His  originality  lies 
in  the  musical  colour  of  his  verse,  and  in  a  certain  delightful 
tenderness  and  vividness  in  his  expression  of  emotion  or  of 
feeling  for  Nature.  Where  he  sometimes  equalled  Tenny- 
son was  in  the  description  of  natural  scenery  and  animal  life. 

I  must  also  tell  you  that  not  all  of  De  Tabley's  poetry  is 
excellent.  A  great  deal  of  what  he  wrote  in  early  life,  both 
dramatic  and  narrative,  is  worth  nothing  at  all.  He  ac- 
knowledged the  fact  himself.  For  many  years  after,  he  ac- 
tually gave  up  all  hope  of  being  a  poet,  and  returned  to  the 
art  only  in  the  evening  of  his  career.  But  the  little  volume 
published  only  two  or  three  years  before  his  death,  under 
the  simple  title  of  "Poems,"  represents  the  essence  of  all 
that  was  best  in  him.  It  is  wonderful  work.  I  believe 
that  his  failure  as  a  poet  in  early  life  was  principally  due 
to  his  natural  timidity — his  instinctive  fear  of  saying  some- 
thing that  might  seem  unconventional,  incorrect,  not  accord- 
ing to  the  canons.  This  timidity  does  not  appear  at  all  in 
his  little  collection  of  lyrical  verse. 

De  Tabley  must  be  studied  quite  as  closely  as  Tennyson, 


LORD  DE  TABLEY  231 

perhaps  even  more  so;  for  he  has  not  always  Tennyson's 
clearness.  To  quote  much  from  him  is  difficult,  and  I  do 
not  wish  to  quote  more  than  will  be  necessary  to  interest  you. 
But  I  think  that  you  will  understand  his  value  better 
through  a  close  study  of  a  dozen  selections  from  his  best 
pieces.  We  may  begin  with  an  exquisite  composition  of 
which  the  subject  is  a  morning  visit  to  the  grave  of  some 
beautiful  woman,  loved  and  lost.  It  is  entitled  "A  Wood- 
land Grave." 

Bring  no  jarring  lute  this  way 

To  demean  her  sepulchre. 
Toys  of  love  and  idle  day 
Vanish  as  we  think  of  her. 
We  who  read  her  epitaph, 
Find  the  world  not  worth  a  laugh. 

Light,  our  light,  what  dusty  night 
Numbs  the  golden  drowsy  head? 
Lo !   empathed  in  pearls  of  light, 
Morn  resurgent  from  the  dead: 
From  whose  amber  shoulders  flow 
Shroud  and  sheet  of  cloudy  woe. 

Woods  are  dreaming,  and  she  dreams: 

Through  the  foliaged  roof  above 
Down  immeasurably  streams 
Splendour  like  an  angel's  love, 
Till  the  tomb  and  gleaming  urn 
In  a  midst  of  glory  burn. 

No  ordinary  poet  could  write  such  magnificent  verse  as 
this ;  in  such  stanzas  Lord  De  Tabley  becomes  for  a  moment 
the  equal  of  Tennyson.  Only  for  a  moment.  The  other 
stanzas  of  the  poem  are  indeed  scarcely  less  splendid  in 
workmanship;  but  they  are  much  less  satisfactory  in  thought 
and  sentiment.  Let  us  look  back  at  the  three  stanzas  just 
read. 

The  first,  declaring  that  no  music  should  be  played  at  the 


2S2  LORD  DE  TABLEY 

woodland  grave,  because  her  loss  has  taught  the  mourner 
the  emptiness  of  all  life  and  all  art,  needs  no  explanation. 
The  second,  with  its  beautiful  but  quite  legitimate  obscurity, 
is  so  contrived  as  to  give  you,  after  careful  reading,  the  exact 
sensation  which  the  morning  hour  of  the  visit  to  the  grave 
makes  within  the  speaker's  mind. 

Already  you  may  have  noticed  the  love  of  this  poet  for 
curious  and  beautiful  words,  such  as  "empathed" ;  also  for 
sonorous  Latin  words,  which  are  used  only  when  they  can 
give  a  fine  effect,  like  the  word  "resurgent."  This  is  an 
exquisite  word  here,  when  we  remember  that  the  Latin 
"resurgo"  (I  rise)  and  the  Latin  "resurgam"  (I  shall  rise 
again)  are  commonly  used  in  inscriptions  upon  tombs,  so 
that  the  corresponding  English  "resurgent"  here  takes  a 
singular  mortuary  value.  But  the  art  of  Lord  De  Tabley's 
verse  is,  I  think,  best  shown  in  a  splendid  ode  to  the  Heav- 
enly Venus  with  which  the  final  collection  of  his  poems 
opens. 

This  ode  certainly  shows  the  influence  of  Swinburne.  We 
know  that  it  never  could  have  been  written  by  him  if  Swin- 
burne's "Dolores"  had  not  been  written  first.  Lord  De 
Tabley  was  one  of  those  timid  poets  who  worked  best  with 
a  model  before  him;  and  in  spite  of  the  influence  of  the 
model  he  is  never  a  plagiarist.  On  the  contrary  he  always 
manages  to  make  his  subject  appeal  to  us  in  a  perfectly 
original  way.  No  English  verse  was  ever  written  superior1 
in  melody  and  sensuous  charm  to  the  wonderful  poem  of 
Swinburne  just  mentioned.  Lord  De  Tabley  was  too  wise 
to  attempt  the  same  kind  of  measure.  He  never  imitates 
other  men's  form.  What  he  has  really  done,  however,  is 
to  magnify  the  subject  chosen  by  Swinburne,  and  to  treat 
it  in  an  equally  powerful,  but  very  different,  way.  The 
Venus  of  Swinburne's  "Dolores"  is  Venus  the  Prostitute; 
the  Venus  of  Lord  De  Tabley  is  Venus  Astarte,  the  Venus 
of  Lucretius,  the  all-pervading  creating  power  of  the  uni- 
verse, of  the  universe  as  comprehended  by  the  modern  mind. 


LORD  DE  TABLEY  233 

This  subject,  I  need  scarcely  tell  you,  is  very  grand  as  well 
as  very  terrible;  but  Lord  De  Tabley  had  the  greatest  Ro- 
man poets  and  philosophers  to  suggest  to  him  how  it  should 
be  treated.  I  am  sure  that  you  will  admire  some  of  these 
stanzas  from  the  "Hymn  to  Astarte." 

Regent  of  Love  and  Pain, 

Before  whose  ageless  eyes, 
The  nations  pass  as  rain, 
And  thou  abidest,  wise, 
As  dewdrops  in  a  cup, 
To  drink  thy  children  up. 

Parent  of  Change  and  Death, 

We  know  thee  and  are  sad, — 
The  scent  of  thy  pale  wreath, 
Thy-lip-touch  and  the  glad 

Sweep  of  thy  glistening  hair; —   1 
We  know  thee,  bitter-fair! 

Empress  of  Earth,  and  queen 

Of  cloud — Time's  early  born 
Daughter,  enthroned  between 
Grey  Sleep  and  emerald  Morn, 
Ruler  of  us  who  fade, — 
God,  of  the  gods  obeyed ! 

Divine,  whose  eye-glance  sweet 
Is  earth  and  heaven's  desire; 
Beneath  whose  pearly  feet, 
The  skies  irradiate  fire, 

And  the  cold  cloud-way  glows 
As  some  rain-burnished  rose. 

Heaven,   dumb   before   thy   face, 

With  fear  and  deep  delight, 
Tingles  through  all  its  space ; 
The  abysmal  shuddering  night, 
Breaks,  as  in  golden  tears, 
Into  a  thousand  spheres ! 

You    must    understand    the    classical    and    philosophic 


234  LORD  DE  TABLEY 

fancy,  however,  to  understand  more  than  splendid  form 
and  sound.  It  is  the  Creating  Power  that  is  thus  addressed, 
the  Love  that  is  older  than  all  gods,  that  made  the  heavens 
and  the  worlds  before  making  the  gods  themselves  and  mak- 
ing the  hearts  of  men.  And  this  power  acts  equally  in  the 
attraction  of  sun  by  sun  and  in  the  attraction  of  the  heart 
of  man  by  the  beauty  of  woman.  Only  the  philosopher, 
the  deep  thinker,  can  perceive  the  infinite  character  of  this 
power,  can  identify  it  with  all  that  men  have  justly  named 
Divine;  but  all  men  feel  in  some  sort  the  influence  of  it  upon 
their  lives,  in  the  pleasures  and  in  the  pains  of  affection. 
However,  few  think  to  themselves  that  the  force  which  they 
call  love  is  really  the  same  thing  that  fills  the  great  night 
of  space  with  the  millions  of  the  stars.  Now  love  and  death 
are  really  very  closely  related,  just  as  the  Greeks  supposed 
them  to  be  and  as  the  mythology  of  India  also  represented 
them.  In  fact,  they  are  but  two  different  modes  of  the  same 
infinite  force.  That  which  creates  is  also  that  which  de- 
stroys; therefore  in  the  Indian  myth  the  most  formidable 
personification  of  divinity  is  represented  with  the  symbol 
of  life  in  one  hand,  and  a  skull,  the  symbol  of  death,  in  the 
other.  Life  is  possible  only  because  of  death — death  is  like 
the  rhythm  of  life;  we  decay  because  we  grow,  and  we  die 
only  because  we  are  born.  Just  why  these  things  should  be 
we  do  not  know,  probably  never  shall  know;  but  we  can 
perceive  the  law.  It  is  this  mysterious  law,  at  once  beau- 
tiful and  terrible,  tender  and  cruel,  which  the  poet  is  really 
representing.  So  the  greatest  of  Roman  poets  and  thinkers, 
Lucretius,  represented  it  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago. 
The  subject  is  the  most  imposing  that  a  poet  could  touch. 
Lord  De  Tabley  was  not  perhaps  enough  of  a  thinker  to  ex- 
press with  sublimity  the  profounder  phases  of  the  mystery 
as  a  greater  philosopher  might  have  expressed  them.  But 
he  had  before  him  the  thoughts  of  greater  men;  and  the 
splendour  of  his  verse  makes  up  for  the  philosophical  weak- 
ness he  might  be  accused  of. 


LORD  DE  TABLEY  235 

When  you  look  into  the  sky  on  a  beautiful  clear  night, 
without  a  moon,  you  see  a  long  white  trail  reaching  over 
the  heavens  like  a  ghostly  bridge;  you  know  that  all  ancient 
religions  taught  poetical  legends  about  this  apparition.  In 
some  mythologies  it  is  a  Celestial  River;  in  others  it  is  a 
Road  of  Souls,  the  pathway  of  the  dead.  The  Egyptians 
represented  it,  however,  in  the  most  weird  of  all  forms,  as 
the  white  body  of  a  woman  bending  across  the  sky,  her  feet 
touching  one  horizon  and  her  hands  the  other,  the  highest 
part  of  the  arch  figuring  her  flanks  and  breast.  This  was 
Neit,  mother  of  the  gods  and  of  all  worlds.  Very  curious 
are  the  pictures  of  Neit  painted  by  the  old  Egyptian  artists. 
The  Greeks  had  a  less  sublime  but  more  tender  fancy  about 
the  white  track;  they  said  that  it  was  formed  by  milk  that 
had  dropped  from  the  breasts  of  the  mother  of  the  gods,  and 
they  were  the  first  to  call  it  the  Milky  Way,  a  term  which  in 
the  Latin  translation  we  still  use — Via  Lactea.  Now  the 
Egyptian  and  the  Greek  and  many  other  myths  were  in  the 
later  times  of  the  Roman  Empire  fused  together,  in  explain- 
ing the  attributes  of  deity.  Eastern  teachers  had  shown  the 
Romans  how  to  make  their  divinities  infinite  in  conception; 
and  Astarte,  as  the  Romans  came  to  know  her,  became  a 
blending  of  thousands  of  divinities  and  divine  attributes. 
Lord  De  Tabley  takes  this  later  conception  of  Astarte,  con- 
taining both  Greek  and  Egyptian  elements,  for  his  theme; 
and  it  has  enabled  him  to  create  the  following  wonderful 
stanzas : 

.  .  .  Each  dewdrop  of  thy  breast 

Becomes  a  starry  world, 

And  the  vast  breathless  skies 
Are  strewn  with  galaxies. 

Nurse  of  Eternity 

Thy  bosom  feeds  the  Sun. 
From  thy  maternity 

All  breasts  in  nature  run. 
Astarte,  to  thy  ray, 
Sick  of  all  gods,  we  pray. 


236  LORD  DE  TABLEY 

The  sublime  imagery  here  is  a  magnification  both  of  the 
ancient  Egyptian  fancy  and  of  the  Greek  dream  of  Cybele, 
the  All-nourishing  Mother,  making  all  fruitful.  I  suppose 
you  will  see  that  the  magnification  is  chiefly  due  to  the  in- 
troduction of  modern  astronomical  ideas.  To  us  the  heav- 
ens have  become  incomparably  vaster  than  they  were  to 
the  ancients ;  therefore,  when  we  apply  to  the  celestial  vision 
any  of  the  strange  or  beautiful  ancient  similes,  those  similes 
become  immensely  magnified  and  infinitely  more  imposing. 
The  poet  also  addresses  Astarte  as  a  divinity  of  destiny,  of 
love-destiny — the  fate  that  makes  the  union  of  every  one 
with  the  chosen  woman. 

Ah,  could  a  mortal  gaze 

In  thy  mysterious  eyes; 
And  through  their  mirrored  maze 
And  treasured  secrecies, 
See  rising  like  a  star, 
The  soul  he  wants  afar! 

This  is  very  beautiful,  the  wish  that  one  could  see  within 
the  eyes  of  God  the  image  of  the  woman  desired,  the  one  soul 
in  all  things  harmonious  with  the  soul  of  the  seeker,  the  ideal 
woman  that  every  man  dreams  of,  but  that  so  few  ever 
find.  Here  I  may  quote  a  few  verses  from  the  description 
of  Love's  temple,  because  of  their  musical  and  luminous 
beauty. 

I  have  seen  thy  silver  fane 

And  trod  thy  slippery  stair, 
Red  with  a  crimson  rain, 
And  footworn  with  despair. 
Pale  as  dead  men,  ah,  sweet! 
We  kneel  to  kiss  thy  feet. 

We  have  leave  one  little  hour 
In  thy  white  house  to  doze: 
Broad  passion-flowers  embower 
The  portals  amber-rose, 
And  lotos-lilies  keep 
Guard  at  thy  shrine  of  sleep. 


LORD  DE  TABLEY  237 

As  drowsy  flies  which  bide 

In  some  grey  spider's  snare; 
Sleep-locked  yet  open-eyed, 
Glad,  yet  in  half  despair, 
Lovers  and  maidens  sit 
In  the  yellow  gates  of  it ! 

The  suggestion  here  is  of  the  eternal  illusion  that  urges 
men  to  all  desperate  things,  causing  death  and  crime  and 
suicide  for  the  sake  of  an  ideal.  Therefore  is  the  shrine  de- 
scribed as  red  with  the  blood  of  men.  The  reference  to  the 
passion  flowers  needs  no  explanation;  but  I  may  remind 
you  that  the  Greek  lotus  flowers  signify  sleep,  a  sleep  like 
that  of  opium,  in  which  the  eyes  see  and  ears  continue  to 
hear  and  the  body  is  free  to  move,  yet  all  things  seem  unreal 
and  far  away.  In  the  third  of  the  stanzas  quoted  the  lovers 
are  represented  as  being  helpless  like  flies  in  the  web  of 
spiders,  caught  in  the  great  spider-web  of  their  passion. 
They  are  at  once  both  glad  and  sad;  everything  seems  to 
them  very  beautiful,  more  beautiful  than  it  really  could 
be;  and  the  gates  of  the  shrine  at  which  they  worship  appear 
to  be  of  purest  yellow  gold.  But  all  this  is  only  dream, 
fascination,  folly;  nothing  lasts,  beauty  withers,  youth  van- 
ishes, and  death  ends  the  passion  and  the  illusion.  What 
then  is  the  meaning  of  this  love  power,  this  irresistible  at- 
traction that  comes  upon  men*?     And  what  is  death*? 

Ah,  girl-mouth,  burning  dew 
That  made  the  violet  faint, 
What  shall  become  of  you, 
My  silver-breasted  saint? 
What  morning  shall  arise 
Upon  those  darkened  eyes  ? 

In  other  words,  what  is  the  use  of  loveliness  and  love, 
beauty  and  worship,  charm  and  youth,  since  all  these  pass 
away  like  smoke*?  Will  the  face  that  charms,  the  voice 
that  caresses,  ever  be  seen,  ever  be  heard  of  again1?  Re- 
ligions change  or  die,  the  gods  themselves  die  and  are  for- 


238  LORD  DE  TABLEY 

gotten,  but  the  tremendous  mystery  of  the  universe  remains 
— the  mystery  of  love  creating  all  things,  only  to  give  them 
to  death.     What  does  it  mean? 

Locked  in  blind  heaven  aloof 

The  gods  are  grey  and  dead, 
Worn  is  the  old  world's  woof, 
Weary  the  sun's  bright  head. 
The  sea  is  out  of  tune 
And  sick  the  silver  moon. 

The  May-fly  lives  an  hour, 

A  star  a  million  years; 
But  as  a  summer  flower, 
Or  as  a  maiden's  fears 

They  pass,  and  heaven  is  bare 
As  though  they  never  were. 

God  withers  his  place, 

His  patient  angels  fade; 
Love,  on  thy  sacred  face, 
Of  tear  and  sunbeam  made, 
In  our  perplexity 
We  turn,  and  gazing  die! 

This  is  only  another  way,  though  a  sublime  and  very 
weird  one,  of  stating  the  great  mystery  of  life.  We  do  not 
know  where  we  came  from,  nor  why  we  exist,  nor  where  we 
are  going  to;  and  we  see  that  perpetual  change  is  the  order 
of  the  universe.  But  one  thing  ever  remains  the  same — the 
attraction  of  sex  for  sex,  the  desire  of  the  male  for  the 
female,  the  perpetual  illusion  of  love,  with  all  its  joys  and 
and  all  its  pains.  What  the  creating  power  may  be,  the 
power  that  shapes,  the  power  that  dissolves,  we  do  not  know. 
But  it  is  surely  the  same  power  which  makes  suns  burn, 
that  also  makes  the  beauty  of  woman  seem  of  all  things  the 
fairest  to  the  heart  of  a  young  man. 

I  would  next  call  your  attention  to  a  fragment  of  the  poem 
of  Circe.     Perhaps  I  had  better  first  say  something  about 


LORD  DE  TABLEY  239 

Circe  herself,  though  this  has  very  little  to  do  with  the 
poem.  Circe,  in  old  Greek  story,  was  a  beautiful  witch, 
who  lived  on  an  island  of  which  she  was  the  supreme  ruler. 
All  men  who  came  to  that  island  were  hospitably  invited  to 
her  home,  and  feasted  on  their  favourite  foods.  Some  of 
them  were  even  allowed  to  make  love  to  her,  to  share  her 
bed.  But  sooner  or  later  each  of  them  was  given  a  cup  of 
magical  wine  to  drink,  and  when  he  had  drunk  this  wine 
he  was  changed  into  a  beast.  In  the  story  of  Circe,  as  told 
by  Homer,  the  companions  of  Ulysses  were  turned  into 
swine  by  this  means;  Ulysses  himself,  however,  was  cunning 
enough  not  to  let  himself  be  bewitched.  I  suppose  you  see 
the  moral,  the  inner  meaning  which  we  can  take  from  the 
myth.  The  name  Circe  is  still  given  to  that  kind  of  wanton 
woman  who  can  make  men  not  simply  foolish,  but  wicked 
and  worthless;  the  love  of  a  bad  woman  really  can  change 
a  man  into  a  beast,  morally  speaking.  The  story  has  in- 
spired hundreds  of  artists,  both  in  ancient  and  in  modern 
times.  Lord  De  Tabley  treats  the  subject  only  artistically, 
not  morally;  he  gives  us  only  a  word-picture  of  the  interior 
of  Circe's  palace,  and  the  strange  things  that  could  be  seen 
there.  The  descriptive  passage  which  I  am  going  to  quote 
is  a  very  fine  example  of  goldsmith  work  in  language,  the 
very  jewellery  of  verse, 

.  .  .  Reared  across  a  loom 

Hung  a  fair  web  of  tapestry  half  done, 

Crowding  with  folds  and  fancies  half  the  room : 

Men  eyed  as  gods,  and  damsels  stiff  as  stone, 

Pressing  their  brows  alone, 

In  amethystine  robes, 

Or  reaching  at  the  polished  orchard-globes, 

Or  rubbing  parted  love-lips  on  their  rind, 

While  the  wind 

Sows  with  sere  apple-leaves  their  breast  and  hair. 

And  all  the  margin  there 

Was  arabesqued  and  bordered  intricate 


240  LORD  DE  TABLEY 

With  hairy  spider  things 

That  catch  and  clamber, 

And  salamander  in  his  dripping  cave, 

Satanic  ebon-amber; 

Blind  worm,  and  asp,  and  eft  of  cumbrous  gait 

And  toads  who  love  rank  grasses  near  a  grave, 

And  the  great  goblin  moth,  who  bears 

Between  his  wings  the  ruined  eyes  of  death; 

And  the  enamelled  sails 

Of  butterflies,  who  watch  the  morning's  breath, 

And  many  an  emerald  lizard  with  quick  ears 

Asleep  in  rocky  dales. 

And  for  an  outer  fringe  embroidered  small, 

A  ring  of  many  locusts,  horny  coated, 

A  round  of  chirping  tree-frogs  merry-throated, 

And  sly,  fat  fishes  sailing,  watching  all. 

This  is  a  description  of  the  tapestry  in  the  detailed  Greek 
manner,  reminding  us  of  the  famous  classic  description  of 
the  shield  of  Achilles.  But  the  charm  of  the  work  is  in 
the  effectiveness  and  suggestiveness  of  the  word-choosing. 
"Polished  orchard  globes"  means  of  course  only  apples,  but 
the  phrase  gives  you  the  exact  idea  as  to  what  kind  of  apple 
is  referred  to.  "Ebon-amber"  is  the  best  expression  possi- 
ble to  describe  the  semi-diaphanous  dark  body  of  the  sala- 
mander; and  the  adjective  Satanic  joined  to  this,  suggests 
the  fantastic  ugliness  of  the  strange  creature.  I  do  not 
know  whether  any  of  you  have  seen  the  death's-head  moth, 
which  is  very  common  in  England  and  is  a  great  enemy  of 
bee-hives.  Upon  the  back  of  this  moth  you  can  see  very 
plainly  the  figure  of  a  human  skull;  the  insect  has  there- 
fore naturally  been  associated  for  hundreds  of  years  with 
superstitious  fancy.  The  thing  about  a  skull  which  first 
especially  strikes  the  observer  is  the  absence  of  eyes;  the 
aspect  of  the  great  hollow  cavities  has  something  sinister 
which  startles  and  sometimes  terrifies.  By  using  the  phrase 
"ruined  eyes  of  death"  instead  of  the  term  skull,  a  very 
powerful  image  is  produced.     Notice  also  the  delicate  use 


LORD  DE  TABLEY  241 

of  the  word  "shells"  to  describe  the  wings  of  the  butterfly; 
it  has  been  used  by  very  old  poets,  but  not  to  describe  such 
small  pinions  as  those  of  an  insect.  Its  effectiveness  here  is 
especially  in  the  suggestion  of  the  slow  flight  peculiar  to  the 
butterfly,  whose  wings  move  so  slowly  that  you  can  always 
see  them  beating  the  air,  and  to  the  eye  they  really  look  like 
tiny  shells,  whereas  the  wings  of  a  dragon-fly  or  of  a  bee 
in  motion  are  not  seen  at  all  except  as  a  kind  of  haze  about 
the  creature's  back. 

Speaking  of  insects,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  all 
poems  ever  made  about  insects  is  Lord  De  Tabley's  "Study 
of  a  Spider."  This  poem  I  found  to  be  much  too  elaborate 
for  the  general  lecture  on  insect  poetry  which  I  gave  lately  in 
another  class;  it  would  have  required  too  much  explanation. 
But  in  this  class  we  can  very  well  study  its  extraordinary 
and  fantastic  charm.  All  the  words  here  are  chosen  with 
a  view  to  producing  one  general  effect  of  horror.  The 
spider  suggests  a  great  many  things  to  poets.  It  suggests 
beauty,  curiosity,  and  terror,  and  the  poet  may  take  his 
choice  among  these  characteristics.  Lord  De  Tabley  has 
chosen  to  take  the  grimmer  aspect,  just  as  Browning  chose 
to  take  the  ghostly  one  when  he  wrote  in  "Mesmerism"  the 
famous  lines — 

And  the  spider,  to  serve  his  ends, 

By  a  sudden  thread, 

Arms  and  legs  outspread, 
On  the  table's  midst  descends, — 
Come  to  find,  God  knows  what  friends! 

Really  the  spider  is  an  awful  creature  in  a  certain  way; 
and  the  very  ugliest  fact  about  it  is  the  sexual  relation  of  the 
insect.  The  female  spider  is  much  larger  than  the  male. 
After  the  male  approaches  and  fecundates  her,  she  turns 
upon  upon  him  and  devours  him.  After  I  have  told  you 
this  fact,  you  will  not  perhaps  think  that  Lord  De  Tabley 
is  too  severe  in  his  judgment  of  the  spider. 


242  LORD  DE  TABLEY 

From  holy  flower  to  holy  flower 

Thou  weavest  thine  unhallowed  bower, 

The  harmless  dewdrops,  beaded  thin, 

Ripple  along  thy  ropes  of  sin. 

Thy  house  a  grave,  a  gulf  thy  throne 

Affrights  the  fairies  every  one. 

Thy  winding-sheets  are  grey  and  fell, 

Imprisoning  with  nets  of  hell 

The  lovely  births  that  winnow  by, 

Winged  sisters  of  the  rainbow  sky: 

Elf-darlings,  fluffy,  bee-bright  things, 

And  owl-white  moths  with  mealy  wings, 

And  tiny  flies,  as  gawzy  thin 

As  e'er  were  shut  electrum  in, 

These  are  thy  death  spoils,  insect  ghoul, 

With  their  dear  life  thy  fangs  are  foul. 

Thou  felon  anchorite  of  pain 

Who  sittest  in  a  world  of  slain. 

Hermit,  who  tunest  song  unsweet 

To  heaving  wing  and  writhing  feet. 

A  glutton  of  creation's  sighs, 

Miser  of  many  miseries. 

Toper,  whose  lonely  feasting  chair 

Sways  in  inhospitable  air. 

The  board  is  bare,  the  bloated  host 

Drinks  to  himself  toast  after  toast 

His  lip  requires  no  goblet  brink, 

But  like  a  weasel  must  he  drink. 

The  vintage  is  as  old  as  time 

And  bright  as  sunset,  pressed  and  prime. 

Ah,  venom-mouth  and  shaggy  thighs, 

And  paunch  grown  sleek  with  sacrifice, 

Thy  dolphin-back  and  shoulders  round 

Coarse-hairy,  as  some  goblin  hound, 

Whom  a  hog  rides  to  sabbath  on, 

While    shuddering   stars    in    fear    grow   wan, — 

Thou  palace  priest  of  treachery, 

Thou  type  of  selfish  lechery, 

I  break  the  toils  around  thy  head, 

And  from  their  gibbets  take  thy  dead. 

In  the  first  two  lines  the  words  "holy"   and  "unhal- 


LORD  DE  TABLEY  243 

lowed"  are  of  course  used  as  synonym  and  antonym.  You 
may  ask  why  a  flower  should  be  spoken  of  as  holy,  sacred. 
It  is  because  flowers  represent  in  Western  symbolism  vir- 
tues, excellences,  and  proprieties — things  divine  and  things 
beautiful.  Thus  the  white  lily  signifies  chastity;  the  violet, 
maidenly  modesty;  the  rose,  ever  so  many  things  which  are 
holy — to  mention  only  the  highest  circle  of  heaven,  the 
symbolic  name  of  the  Mother  of  God,  and  the 
charm  of  womanhood.  Among  these  flowers,  emblems 
of  all  pure  and  holy  things,  the  spider's  nest  does 
indeed  represent  all  the  contraries, — hell  as  com- 
pared with  heaven,  the  devil  with  angels,  crime  as 
contrasted  with  the  highest  and  most  beautiful  expression 
of  life.  Even  the  frail  beauty  of  the  dew,  as  indicated  in 
the  next  couplet,  ceases  to  seem  beautiful  on  the  strings  of 
the  deadly  snare  of  the  spider.  The  reference  to  the  fairies 
must  be  understood  in  relation  to  the  pretty  superstitions 
that  good  fairies  lived  in  flowers.  In  the  next  few  couplets 
there  is  nothing  to  explain,  but  please  notice  the  delicate 
power  and  beauty  of  the  adjectives.  "Fell,"  the  old  word 
signifying  deadly,  has  a  fine  quality  here  as  coupled  with 
the  word  "grey"  to  describe  the  web,  rightly  termed  a  wind- 
ing-sheet, the  wrapping  of  the  dead.  "Fluffy"  gives  us  the 
idea  of  something  cottony  or  flossy,  like  silk  waste;  the 
bodies  of  many  beautiful  insects  look  as  if  they  were  cov- 
ered with  a  kind  of  silk  or  cotton  floss.  The  verb  "winnow" 
here  expresses  especially  the  visible  motion  of  the  butter- 
fly's wings.  Why  is  the  moth  compared  to  an  owl,  in  the 
line  about  "owl-white  moths'"?  Because  both  are  night 
creatures  and  fly  about  at  the  same  time.  The  white  owl 
has  a  very  beautiful  plumage,  and  looks  like  a  mass  of  snow. 
So  does  the  white  English  night  moth,  which  has  a  remark- 
ably plump  body,  covered  with  something  like  snowy  down. 
Moths  and  butterflies  may  both  be  said  to  have  "mealy 
wings";  you  can  not  touch  the  wing  without  getting  your 
fingers  smirched  with  something  that  appears  to  be  like  flour 


244  LORD  DE  TABLEY 

but  is  really  composed  of  beautiful  scale-feathers.  A  little 
further  you  read  of  flies  being  shut  into  "electrum";  per- 
haps you  will  not  be  so  accustomed  to  this  word  as  to  the 
word  "amber."  Of  course  you  know  that  in  amber  there 
has  been  preserved  for  us  many  kinds  of  insects,  some  of 
which  do  not  now  seem  to  exist.  "Ghoul,"  ought  to  be 
familiar  to  everybody  who  has  read  the  Arabian  stories. 
The  word  is  of  Arab  origin;  the  ghoul  is  a  creature  sup- 
posed to  live  in  cemeteries,  to  devour  the  bodies  of  the  dead, 
and  to  entice  the  living  to  destruction.  Sometimes  the  ghoul 
takes  the  form  of  a  beautiful  woman  sitting  by  the  road 
side  and  inviting  the  caress  of  travellers.  But  whoever  ap- 
proaches her  is  devoured.  Next  we  have  a  spider  described 
as  a  felon  or  criminal  anchorite — that  is  to  say,  hermit. 
The  solitary  habit  of  the  spider  could  hardly  be  better 
described  by  any  two  words.  The  hermit  is  supposed  to 
pass  part  of  his  time  in  singing  hymns ;  the  spider  hermit  is 
silent,  but  he  makes  his  victims  sound  harsh  music — mean- 
ing the  buzzing  of  the  captured  flies,  whose  struggles  are 
excellently  described  by  the  words  "heaving  wings  and 
writhing  feet."  The  words  "toper"  and  "bloated"  refer 
commonly  to  drunkards,  the  latter  word  picturing  the 
swollen  appearance  of  the  face  and  body  of  the  habitual 
drinker.  The  spider  has  indeed  a  bloated  look,  but  it  is 
blood  that  he  drinks,  not  wine ;  therefore  his  drink  is  spoken 
of  as  being  old  as  time  and  bright  as  sunset — that  is,  bright 
red  like  the  sinking  sun.  The  weasel  does  not  eat  the  flesh 
of  its  victims,  but  sucks  the  blood;  the  spider  is  especially 
a  sucker,  so  his  drinking  is  compared  to  the  drinking  of  the 
weasel.  The  last  ten  lines  of  the  composition  include  com- 
parisons of  the  spider  to  all  ugly  things,  coupled  in  all  mon- 
strous contrasts.  Notice  the  word  "shaggy"  in  the  first 
of  these  lines;  it  means  much  more  than  hairy — a  shaggy 
surface  is  one  covered  not  with  smooth  but  with  long  rough 
hair.  The  back  is  compared  to  a  dolphin's  only  because 
it  is  humped;  and  round  shoulders  refer  to  deformed  shoul- 


LORD  DE  TABLEY  245 

ders.  A  round-shouldered  person  is  a  person  who  can  not 
stand  straight.  "Goblin  hound" — that  is  to  say,  goblin 
dog — is  a  comparsion  that  will  scarcely  be  familiar  to  some 
of  you  unless  you  have  seen  pictures  of  the  witches'  Sab- 
bath. In  some  of  the  finely  illustrated  German  editions  of 
Faust  you  will  be  able  to  find  such  pictures.  The  witches 
are  represented  as  going  to  attend  the  wicked  sacrifices  at 
night,  riding  through  the  air  upon  goblin  animals,  such  as 
goats  and  dogs.  These  spectral  animals  are  really  evil 
demons,  and  the  witches  are  mostly  represented  as  very 
ugly  old  women,  called  "hags."  Next  we  have  the  term 
"palace  priest  of  treachery,"  probably  because  many  of  the 
famous  intrigues  of  history  were  managed  by  priests  who 
in  virtue  of  their  sacred  character  were  trusted  in  the  palaces 
of  kings.  In  the  last  line  but  one,  remember  that  the  word 
"toils"  is  often  used  by  old  poets  to  signify  the  lines  of  a 
snare  or  the  meshes  of  a  net. 

With  this  hasty  analysis  of  the  description,  I  believe  that 
you  will  be  able  to  find  some  pleasure  in  studying  the  lines 
for  yourselves.  No  poem  in  the  book  gives  a  fuller  illustra- 
tion of  Lord  de  Tabley's  skill  as  a  master  of  fine  language. 
With  the  "Study  of  a  Spider,"  we  may  close  this  lecture 
about  him.  If  you  can  appreciate  the  few  selections  which 
I  have  made,  I  think  you  will  like  to  return  at  a  later  time 
to  the  study  of  him. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
NOTE  ON  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

I  had  hoped,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  term,  to  give 
a  lecture  upon  the  relation  between  the  English  and  the 
French  romantic  movement;  but  there  will  not  be  time  to 
treat  the  subject  except  in  the  briefest  possible  way.  How- 
ever, these  few  notes  should  be  of  some  use  to  you.  Every 
student,  of  course,  should  be  aware  that  the  great  move- 
ments in  modern  literature  have  never  been  confined  to  one 
country  only.  The  romantic  movement  of  which  we  have 
been  treating  in  its  relation  to  English  literature,  really  ex- 
tended over  all  Europe.  It  represented  a  change  not  merely 
in  English  literature,  but  in  Occidental  literature.  Every 
country  influenced  every  other,  and  each  was  influenced 
by  all.  The  benefit  of  the  change  effected  in  France  was 
extended  speedily  to  England  and  to  Germany;  and  Eng- 
land in  turn  gave  both  to  German  and  to  French  literature 
the  benefits  of  its  own  literary  reform.  The  most  brilliant 
of  all  the  romantic  movements  was  certainly  the  French; 
and  England  owes  more  to  French  influence  than  to  any 
other.  It  has  always  been  so.  The  English  classical  lit- 
erature of  the  eighteenth  century  was  modelled  upon  French 
classic  literature.  The  English  romances  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  had  their  counterparts  in  France ; 
nor  was  it  until  the  huge  French  romances  had  been  trans- 
lated into  English  that  the  English  work  developed  an  orig- 
inal character  of  its  own.  Go  back  yet  farther,  to  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  proper,  and  you  will  find  English  literature  equally 
if  not  more  indebted  to  France.  And  finally  you  must  re- 
member that  in  the  eleventh  century  French  became  the 
language  of  England  and  long  continued  to  be.  Although 
originally  springing  from  strangely  different  sources,   the 

246 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  247 

English  and  the  French  languages  have  so  interacted  upon 
each  other  that  English  and  French  literatures  are  more 
closely  related  than  any  other  two  literatures  of  Europe. 

The  French  romantic  movement,  like  the  English,  was  a 
gradual  development;  we  can  trace  it  well  back  into  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  should  do  so  if  there  were  time. 
Suffice  now  to  say  that  the  blossoming  of  this  movement 
began  about  the  same  time  that  English  romanticism  had  its 
triumphs,  just  about  the  time  when  Tennyson  was  beginning 
to  make  himself  felt.  There  were  before  that  French  poets 
of  original  and  beautiful  talent,  who  corresponded  some- 
what in  the  history  of  romanticism  to  our  earlier  romantics, 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  Scott.  But  the  real  triumph 
began  in  the  early  thirties — between  1830  and  1834,  ^et  us 
say — though  Victor  Hugo's  "Orientales"  appeared  as  early 
as  1829.  There  is  one  thing,  however,  worth  noticing — that 
with  a  solitary  exception,  that  of  Dumas,  nearly  all  of  the 
great  romantics  were  born  just  about  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  1802,  1804,  up  to  1811.  Even  Dumas  came  very 
nearly  being  born  in  the  nineteenth  century,  for  his  date 
is  1799. 

I  do  not  think  the  French  romantic  movement  was  so 
much  superior  to  the  English  in  poetry  as  in  prose;  indeed, 
the  matter  is  very  disputable,  and  if  we  grant  the  French 
superiority,  it  is  rather  because  of  the  finer  qualities  of  their 
language  than  because  of  higher  qualities  of  thought  or 
feeling.  To  the  student  in  this  country,  moreover,  the 
poetical  part  of  the  movement  is  the  least  likely  to  appeal. 
I  do  not  know  that  it  would  do  you  any  more  good  to  read 
the  French  romantic  poets  than  to  read  the  great  English 
romantic  poets.  The  English  poets  will  furnish  you  with 
quite  as  many  ideas  and  sentiments.  But  the  French  poetry 
was  of  a  totally  different  order — much  more  passionate, 
warm,  musical  and  brightly  coloured  than  the  average  of 
English  romantic  poetry.  And  it  was  more  perfect  as  to 
form;  the  English  language  is  not  capable  of  producing 


248  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

verses  of  such  jewelled  splendours  as  the  "Emaux  et 
Camees"  of  Theophile  Gautier.  For  this  reason,  perhaps, 
it  may  be  rather  to  your  interest  to  give  your  first  attention 
to  French  poetry.  I  shall,  however,  make  this  lecture  deal 
chiefly  with  the  story  tellers  among  the  French  romantics, 
and  their  peculiarities  as  masters  of  style. 

There  are  a  number  of  names  to  be  mentioned,  but  most 
of  these  can  be  classed  under  two  heads.  You  will  remem- 
ber that  in  our  English  Victorian  and  pre- Victorian  epochs 
there  were  two  remarkably  different  styles  in  use,  and  that 
these  two  styles  continue  to  prevail.  There  is  an  ornate  or 
highly  romantic  style ;  and  there  is  the  severe  style,  simple  as 
anything  in  classic  literature,  or  even  more  simple, — without 
any  ornament,  and  yet  with  extraordinary  power  of  touch- 
ing the  emotions.  In  French  literature  we  find  the  very 
same  thing.  But  a  curious  terminology  was  invented  to 
describe  these  differences  in  French  style;  and  it  is  so  queer, 
so  easy  to  remember,  that  I  am  going  to  use  it  in  this  lecture. 
The  writers  of  very  ornate  prose,  like  Gautier  and  Hugo, 
have  been  called  myopic  stylists — men  who  wrote  as  if  they 
were  myopic,  very  near  sighted,  seeing  things  in  all  their 
details  very  closety,  and  so  able  to  describe  every  little 
item.  But  writers  of  the  other  style,  like  Merimee,  were 
called  presbyopic  or  far-sighted  stylists — describing  as  if 
they  saw  clearly  at  vast  distances,  but  did  not  distinguish 
small  things  in  their  immediate  neighbourhood. 

The  great  names,  of  course,  are  Victor  Hugo,  Alfred  de 
Musset,  Sainte-Beuve,  Theophile  Gautier,  Alexandre  Du- 
mas, Honore  de  Balzac,  Prosper  Merimee  and  "George 
Sand"  (Armandine  Lucile  Dudevant) — in  the  first  group. 
Of  Sainte-Beuve,  the  greatest  critic  who  ever  lived,  I  have 
already  spoken,  and  of  his  influence  upon  English  criticism; 
he  need  be  mentioned  here  only  as  an  infallible  guide. 
Without  reading  him  no  one  can  hope  to  form  a  correct 
taste  in  French  literature. 

Victor  Hugo's  name  and  work  is  so  well  known  that  we 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  249 

need  treat  of  him  very  briefly.  And  the  same  may  be  said 
of  Alexandre  Dumas,  the  nearest  French  approach  to  our 
British  Sir  Walter  Scott,  though  far  surpassing  Scott  in 
fantastic  imagination.  As  to  Balzac,  who  is  not  particularly 
a  stylist,  we  need  remark  only  that  he  attempted  success- 
fully the  immense  feat  of  describing  the  whole  of  French 
life,  and  the  conditions  of  every  class  of  society,  in  a  vast 
succession  of  novels,  nearly  all  of  which  are  linked  together, 
so  that  the  characters  in  one  story  re-appear  in  another — 
the  whole  representing  some  fifty-two  volumes. 

"George  Sand,"  who  in  all  respects  resembles  the  English 
George  Eliot,  was  especially  a  writer  of  passionate  love 
stories;  she  does  not  figure  as  a  stylist,  for  her  books  will  not 
bear  the  test  of  being  twice  read  with  pleasure.  A  book 
that  you  can  not  read  twice  with  a  feeling  of  pleasure  has 
no  style.  But  although  not  a  stylist,  and  now  a  little 
wearisome  to  read,  this  woman  really  founded  a  great  school 
of  romantic  novel  writing,  which  continues  to  this  day. 
The  styles  of  the  group  are  best  represented  in  the  persons 
of  Theophile  Gautier,  and  of  Prosper  Merimee, — the  former 
being  the  most  decorative  of  all  French  stylists,  and  the 
latter  the  least  decorative  and  the  most  severe.  As  for 
Victor  Hugo  I  am  not  going  to  say  much  about  him,  for  the 
reasons  already  given;  in  his  way  he  was  quite  as  ornamental 
as  any  one  else,  but  only  in  a  way.  His  style  is  incompar- 
ably more  irregular  than  that  of  Carlyle;  it  is  rather  an 
idiosyncrasy  than  a  style.  To  tempt  you  to  study  these 
writers  I  should  recommend  their  short  stories  as  better 
than  their  long  ones  for  a  beginning,  and  I  shall  speak  par- 
ticularly of  these.  But  such  writers  as  Alfred  de  Musset 
and  Balzac  also  wrote  short  stories,  some  of  which  may  be 
advantageously  mentioned  as  representative  of  the  second 
great  style  referred  to.  To  sum  up  first :  Victor  Hugo  repre- 
sented the  Gothic  spirit  of  the  movement,  best  exemplified 
in  his  terrible  mediaeval  story  of  "Notre  Dame."  De  Mus- 
set, with  some  classic  tendencies,  gives  us  in  his  prose  tales 


250  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

a  light  delicacy  and  grace  of  narrative  that  almost  belongs 
as  much  to  the  eighteenth  as  to  the  nineteenth  century. 
Gautier,  the  second  greatest  power  in  the  movement — he 
could  produce  more  perfect  poetry  than  even  Victor  Hugo — 
is  also  the  greatest  of  all  French  masters  of  rich  style;  I 
should  remind  you  that  he  was  also  the  historian  of  the 
romantic  movement,  which  he  recorded  in  a  charming  series 
of  studies  entitled  "Histoire  du  Romantisme."  Alexandre 
Dumas  represents  the  novel  of  incident.  Balzac  takes  a 
place  apart,  for  his  innovation  was  something  entirely  orig- 
inal. Merimee,  both  historian  and  story  teller,  resembles 
our  English  Froude  in  more  ways  than  one.  And  George 
Sand  was  the  mother  of  that  endless  series  of  novels  of  pas- 
sion— illegitimate  passion  rather  than  legitimate — which 
have  not  yet  ceased  to  pour  from  the  Parisian  press. 

Gautier  I  shall  speak  of  first.  He  was  a  charming  man 
and  a  very  great  scholar,  and  something  of  his  character  as 
well  as  of  his  scholarship  accounts  for  the  extraordinary 
beauty  of  his  work.  He  was  one  of  the  few  great  journalists 
who  never  wrote  an  unkind  word  about  any  man,  although 
he  attacked  parties  and  principles  which  he  considered  wrong. 
He  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  art  for  art's  sake — the  crea- 
tion or  reflection  of  beauty  as  the  chief  object  of  art.  His 
knowledge  of  Greek  thought  and  feeling  particularly  influ- 
enced his  artistic  doctrine;  unless  the  subject  were  beauty,  he 
would  not  touch  it.  In  this  he  differed  very  much  from 
Hugo,  who  delighted  in  the  horrible  and  the  grotesque. 
One  of  his  eccentricities  is  worth  mentioning;  his  chief 
pleasure  was  the  reading  of  the  dictionary,  and  it  was  his 
custom  to  ask  any  young  aspirant  for  literary  honours,  "Do 
you  like  to  read  dictionaries'?"  If  the  young  man  said, 
"Yes,"  they  were  friends;  if  he  said,  "No,"  Gautier  sus- 
pected that  he  would  never  become  a  sincere  lover  of  art. 
Most  certainly  it  was  by  the  study  of  dictionaries  that 
Gautier  became  a  veritable  magician  of  style,  but  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  same  method  succeeds  in  all  cases.     It 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  251 

succeeded  with  him  not  only  because  he  was  a  genius,  but 
because  he  had  had  the  very  best  classical  training,  and  he 
put  it  to  the  most  romantic  use.     We  have  nothing  in 
English  at  all  like  his  books — there  is  nobody  to  compare 
with  him.     You  must  try  to  remember  just  these  two  things 
about  him — that  he  chose  only  subjects  which  he  thought 
beautiful  and  heroic,  and  that  he  treated  them  in  a  most 
exquisite  way.     But  his  aesthetics  were  not  narrow;  beauty 
of  any  kind  attracted  him,  no  matter  to  what  age  or  part  of 
the  world  it  might  belong.     Do  you  remember  the  story 
of  De  Quincey  about  the  Spanish  nun4?     The  subject  is  a 
strange  one — that  of  a  woman  becoming  a  soldier  and  a 
swordsman,  distinguished  for  force,  courage,  and  beauty — 
a  very  romantic  subject.     Besides  the  Spanish  story  there 
is  a  story  in  French  history  of  a  lady  named  de  Maupin  who 
actually  fought  duels  with  the  sword.     How  charming  the 
story  of  a  woman  in  man's  clothes  can  be  made,  Shakespeare 
has  given  us  more  than  one  supreme  example;  you  will  re- 
member "Twelfth  Night,"  for  example,  and  "As  You  Like 
It."     Out  of  these  three  elements  Gautier  composed  his 
famous  "Mademoiselle  de  Maupin,"  the  story  of  a  woman 
in  man's  clothes,  who  has  all  kinds  of  amorous  adventures. 
Perhaps  there  was  also  some  inspiration  from  the  old  Ital- 
ian writers,  such  as  Boccaccio.     Certainly  the  book  was 
immoral.     But  it  was  also  very  beautiful,  and  it  was  written 
especially  as  a  defiance  to  conventions.     Gautier  himsell 
was  the  most  moral  of  men;  but  he  fought  against  any  re- 
strictions upon  literature,  either  of  religion  or  convention. 
And  he  succeeded,  he  broke  down  the  bars.     But  it  was  in 
his  short  stories  perhaps  that  he  proved  himself  greatest. 
There  are  several  volumes  of  these.     The  best  two  are 
simply  entitled   "Romans  et  Contes,"   and   "Nouvelles." 
The  greatest  of  all  romantic  short  stories  in  French  litera- 
ture is  probably  "La  Morte  Amoureuse,"  and  that  you  will 
find  in  one  of  these  volumes.     It  is  a  vampire  story — the 
story  of  a  dead  woman  who  comes  in  the  night  to  suck  the 


252  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

blood  of  a  lover,  whom  she  keeps  in  a  state  of  magical  illu- 
sion. Such  a  subject  can  be  very  horrible,  but  Gautier 
made  it  very  beautiful.  Quite  as  remarkable,  I  think,  is 
the  story  of  Arria  Marcella,  telling  of  the  coming  back 
from  the  dead,  through  the  power  of  passion,  of  a  woman 
buried  for  thousands  of  years.  The  beauty  of  this  story  is 
especially  in  the  artistic  resurrection  of  the  life  of  Pompeii; 
and  very  considerable  archaeological  knowledge  was  required 
to  write  it.  Another  wonderful  little  story  is  called  "Le 
Pied  de  la  Momie,"  or  the  Mummy's  Foot;  it  deals  with 
the  life  of  ancient  Eg)^pt.  A  man  who  has  the  dried  foot 
of  a  female  mummy  purchased  as  a  curio,  wishes  he  could 
see,  as  in  life,  the  person  to  whom  that  foot  once  belonged; 
and  she  comes  to  him  out  of  the  night  of  five  thousand  years, 
and  brings  him  under  ground  to  the  assembly  of  her  ances- 
tors, myriads  of  dead  kings  and  princes.  A  fourth  story 
treats  on  a  subject  well  known  in  Japanese  tradition,  the 
animation  of  a  beloved  picture,  the  picture  in  this  case  being 
embroidered  instead  of  painted.  But  I  cannot  tell  you  more 
about  Gautier's  stories  in  this  short  lecture:  if  you  will 
simply  take  those  two  volumes  and  choose  for  yourselves, 
you  will  find  what  a  wonderful  writer  and  story  teller  he  is. 
There  is  but  one  draw-back — his  love  of  extraordinary 
words ;  you  can  not  read  his  artistic  stories  without  having  a 
dictionary  of  art  at  your  elbow. 

Very  different  is  it  with  Prosper  Merimee.  Gautier  loved 
long  rolling  sentences,  long  soft  rhythms;  he  often  composed 
a  sentence  a  page  and  a  half  long,  just  as  Ruskin  did.  But 
the  sentences  of  Merimee  are  all  short,  clear,  crisp,  without 
rhythms,  without  extraordinary  words,  and  with  the  use 
of  the  fewest  possible  number  of  adjectives.  No  style, 
except  that  of  the  old  Norse  writers,  is  so  plain  and  so  simple. 

It  would  be  hard  to  say  where  his  style  appears  to  the 
best  advantage — in  his  histories,  in  his  stories,  or  in  his 
letters.  As  for  his  histories,  such  as  "Les  Cosaques  d'Au- 
trefois,"  they  read  like  the  best  of  romances,  though  nobody 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  253 

could  claim  that  he  is  in  the  least  defective  or  inaccurate  as 
an  historian.  The  book  upon  the  great  Cossacks  is  the 
very  best  that  I  know  of — perhaps,  indeed,  the  only  book 
that  gives  you  in  brief  space  a  clear  idea  ol  the  old  time 
struggle  between  Russia  and  her  Tartar  conquerors,  as  well 
as  a  history  of  the  marvellous  militia,  the  Cossacks  them- 
selves. The  accounts  of  the  cavalry  battles  are  spirited 
enough  almost  to  lift  the  reader  off  his  feet.  Another 
strange  book  of  his  deals  with  the  famous  impostor  who  pre- 
tended to  be  the  legitimate  heir  to  the  throne  of  Russia,  and 
actually  succeeded  almost  in  making  himself  emperor.  This 
is  "Les  Faux  Demetrius"  (for  there  were  two  of  these  im- 
postors), and  gives  such  a  picture  of  Russian  life  in  the  old 
time  as  you  will  not  find  in  any  other  single  volume. 
Merimee  liked  the  Middle  Ages,  too,  and  he  has  given  us 
some  wonderful  essays  upon  French  history.  By  the  way, 
you  should  remember  that  it  was  he  who  helped  Napoleon 
III  to  write  his  famous  history  of  Csesar.  But  to  the  mass 
of  readers  Merimee  is  better  known  by  his  wonderful  stories 
— "Carmen,"  "Colomba,"  "Tamango,"  "Mateo  Falcone," 
"La  Venus  d'llle,"  and  so  forth.  The  first  mentioned  of 
the  above,  "Carmen,"  is  the  story  of  a  Spanish  soldier  be- 
witched by  a  gipsy  girl,  for  whose  sake  he  becomes  a  mur- 
derer and  robber.  He  kills  her  at  last  in  prison,  on  the  even- 
ing before  his  execution.  A  more  terrible  story,  and  yet  a 
more  touching  story,  was  never  written.  The  book  is,  more- 
over, a  revelation  of  certain  characteristics  of  Spanish  gip- 
sies. I  think  you  know  that  it  has  been  made  into  an 
opera,  the  music  of  which  was  composed  by  the  great  musi- 
cian Bizet,  who  represented  the  romantic  movement  in  mu- 
sic. Those  who  have  heard  the  Spanish  and  Havana  melo- 
dies introduced  into  this  opera  will  not  easily  forget  them. 
"Colombo"  is  the  story  of  a  Corsican  vendetta.  It  is  a 
matchless  picture  of  Corsican  manners  and  customs,  as  full 
of  poetry  as  they  are  of  ferocity.  "Mateo  Falcone"  is 
another  Corsican  story,  short  and  frightful,  about  a  father, 


254  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

who,  although  an  outlaw,  kills  his  little  boy  for  betraying 
the  honour  of  the  family.  "Tamango"  is  the  story  of  a 
slave  ship,  founded  on  fact.  The  slaves  rise  in  revolt,  kill 
the  captain  and  the  crew,  and  seize  the  ship;  but  they  do  not 
know  how  to  navigate  her,  and  she  drifts  about  hopelessly 
until  nearly  all  on  board  are  dead.  "La  Venus  dTlle," 
is  the  tale  of  an  antique  statue,  which  exerts  a  ghostly  and 
fatal  charm  upon  its  possessor.  I  have  been  selecting  only 
a  few  titles  out  of  many,  and  it  would  be  useless  perhaps  to 
mention  the  variety  from  the  Italian,  Spanish,  German  and 
Russian  studies  scattered  through  Merimee's  volumes.  For 
the  charm  of  the  man  is  so  very  great  that  if  you  read  only 
one  or  two  of  his  tales  you  can  scarcely  rest  until  you  have 
read  them  all.  And  a  noteworthy  fact  about  Merimee, 
which  also  shows  the  bent  of  his  taste,  is  that  he  is  almost 
the  first  to  introduce  European  readers  to  the  wonderful 
merit  of  the  Russian  novelists.  He  first  made  translations 
from  Gogol  and  Pushkin,  and  among  his  translations  from 
the  Russian  the  most  extraordinary  thing  is  the  little  story 
entitled  "La  Dame  de  Pique"  (Queen  of  Spades),  a  marvel- 
lous narrative  about  a  gambler's  life  in  which  a  certain  fatal 
card  plays  a  tragical  part.  There  are  also  to  be  found  in 
Merimee  things  which  are  not  exactly  stories — rather  studies 
in  realism,  which  anticipate  Maupassant,  such  as  the  little 
piece  entitled  "L'Enlevement  de  la  Redoute"  (the  capture 
of  the  Redout),  the  narrative  of  a  soldier  who  helped  to 
storm  the  fortress.  He  describes  only  what  he  felt  and  saw, 
in  the  simple  language  of  a  soldier,  and  the  narrative  gives 
the  reader  exactly  the  sensation  of  having  been  in  the  fight. 
Gautier  must  have  taught  a  great  deal  about  style  to  Eng- 
lish writers;  Merimee  could  only  be  admired.  The  Eng- 
lishman who  comes  nearest  to  Merimee  in  style  is  Froude. 
Merimee  is  a  much  greater  artist,  writing  in  a  much  more 
perfect  language,  and  I  doubt  whether  any  Englishman  can 
ever  succeed  in  producing  exactly  the  same  effects.  In 
French,  Merimee  had  no  imitator  before  Maupassant;  and 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  255 

even  Maupassant  could  not  surpass  him.  It  is  true  that  the 
charm  of  Merimee  is  partly  due  to  the  strange  and  exotic 
character  of  his  subjects,  but  independently  of  the  subject 
the  method  is  always  supreme.  We  may  say  that  his  was 
the  most  realistic  of  styles,  although  producing  the  most  ro- 
mantic effects. 

Of  the  other  writers,  only  a  few  need  be  dealt  with  at 
some  length.  The  prose  of  De  Musset,  the  beautiful  little 
stories  of  Italian  and  Parisian  life,  though  romantic  in  feel- 
ing, are  written  also  in  a  very  plain  style,  approaching  that 
of  Merimee  but  not  equalling  it.  A  better  example  of  his 
style  is  in  the  famous  "Confession  d'un  Enfant  du  Siecle" 
(The  Confession  of  a  child  of  the  age),  which  is  a  passion- 
ate piece  of  autobiography.  It  tells  us  all  the  pain  and 
despair  and  jealousy  of  a  young  man  betrayed  by  the  woman 
to  whom  he  was  attached,  and  the  man  was  the  author 
himself,  though  other  names  are  of  course  used.  One  of 
the  female  characters  in  the  narrative  is  supposed  to  be  the 
famous  George  Sand.  De  Musset  was  her  lover  for  a  time, 
and  it  appears  by  his  own  confession  that  he  was  a  very 
difficult  man  for  any  woman  to  live  with.  But,  whatever 
may  be  the  right  or  the  wrong  of  the  story,  there  is  no  doubt 
about  the  passionate  pathos  and  the  beauty  of  the  book. 
However,  De  Musset  was  not  of  much  influence  in  French 
prose.  The  great  influences  of  the  first  period  were  Gautier 
and  Merimee. 

It  is  possible,  of  course,  for  a  man  to  affect  literature 
through  stories  which  do  not  depend  for  their  immortal 
merit  upon  mere  style,  but  upon  imagination  and  suggestion. 
Now  Balzac  is  one  of  those  who  did  this.  His  enormous 
series  of  novels  did  not  affect  French  literature  as  prose; 
they  served  only  to  establish  a  new  school  of  fiction.  He 
was  not  at  his  best  as  a  stylist  in  this  long  chain  of  inter- 
linked novels,  but  when  he  took  to  writing  short  stories  it 
was  quite  a  different  matter,  and  some  of  the  short  stories 
must  live  for  all  time. 


256  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

The  most  famous  of  all  these  is  the  "Peau  de  Chagrin." 
I  think  you  know  that  the  word  "chagrin"  means  grief,  but 
it  also  means  a  particular  preparation  of  leather  for  which 
we  use  the  word  "shagreen."     The  double  signification  in 
the  title  can  be  best  valued  through  a  notion  of  the  story.     A 
young  man  in  a  second-hand  dealer's  shop,  finds  exposed  for 
sale  a  curious  skin  or  parchment,  covered  with  magical  char- 
acters.    He  wishes  to  buy  it,  but  is  warned  by  the  dealer 
that  if  he  buys  it  it  will  destroy  him.     It  is  a  magical  skin, 
and  it  has  this  extraordinary  property  that  anybody  who 
possesses  it  can  gratify  any  wish  which  he  may  express. 
But  so  soon  as  the  wish  is  gratified,  two  things  happen — the 
skin  shrinks  and  becomes  much  smaller,  and  the  life  of  the 
wisher  is   shortened  correspondingly.     As   you   may    well 
suppose,  the  young  man  buys  the  skin  and  proceeds  to  gratify 
a  great  number  of  wishes.     He  wishes  to  be  rich,  and  he  is 
rich ;  he  wishes  for  power,  and  he  obtains  power ;  he  wishes 
to  have  the  most  beautiful  woman  in  the  world,  and  the 
beautiful  woman  becomes  his  wife.     By  the  time  he  begins 
to  feel  rather  satisfied,  the  skin  has  become  terribly  small, 
and  his  life  is  apparently  very  near  an  end.     Then  he  dis- 
covers that  he  must  absolutely  stop  wishing  for  anything 
in  order  that  he  may  be  able  to  live  a  little  longer.     His 
physician  warns  him  that  he  must  not  think  about  women  at 
all,  not  even  about  his  own  wife.     You  can  very  well  imag- 
ine the  end  of  the  story.     One  sensual  wish  comes,  the  skin 
disappears,  and  the  life  of  the  man  departs.     You  can  see 
that  this  is  a  very  great  story  because  of  the  great  moral  in 
it.     It  is  quoted  everywhere,  and  every  student  should  at 
least  remember  the  title. 

Again  Balzac  produced  two  volumes  of  stories  entitled 
"Contes  Drolatiques,"  translated  into  English  under  the 
title  of  "Droll  Stories  from  the  Abbeys  of  Touraine."  The 
English  translation,  with  its  425  illustrations  by  Dore,  is 
very  fair;  but  it  scarcely  gives  you  an  idea  of  the  astonish- 
ing art  of  the  original,  written  in  the  quaint  French  of  the 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  257 

sixteenth  century.  These  stories  are  certainly  of  the  kind 
that  remain  immortal,  notwithstanding  the  strangely  im- 
moral character  of  many  of  them.  They  reflect  the  life  of 
the  Middle  Ages  in  all  its  horror  and  superstition,  but  also 
in  all  its  tenderness  and  poetry.  There  are  very  extraor- 
dinary stories.  They  begin  by  making  you  laugh;  a  little 
further  along  they  become  very  sensual,  in  the  worst  sense; 
then  all  at  once  they  become  so  intensely  human  and  pathetic 
as  to  bring  tears  to  the  eyes.  Now  there  are  very  few  stories 
of  that  sort  in  the  literature  of  the  world — grotesque,  im- 
moral, comical,  human  and  pathetic.  But  we  feel  that  the 
life  of  the  time  described  was  really  a  life  of  this  kind;  the 
morals  were  not  as  now,  many  of  the  customs  were  atrocious, 
cruelty  was  the  rule  rather  than  an  exception  in  the  gov- 
erning of  cities,  and  yet  the  emotions  of  love  and  heroism 
and  all  the  tender  feelings  existed  very  much  as  they  exist 
today.  Feeling  this,  we  cease  to  find  fault  with  the  im- 
moral parts  of  the  story.  These  only  tell  the  truth  about 
the  form  of  life  that  has  passed  away.  You  have  that  book 
in  the  English  translation  in  the  library;  and  it  would  be 
better  to  read  the  English  version  first  before  trying  the 
French,  for  the  French  is  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  re- 
quires a  little  patience  to  become  familiar  with. 

Another  group  of  romantics  came  later  who  also  influenced 
prose  literature,  though  poetry  much  more.  In  fact,  to  be 
quite  accurate,  there  were  three  groups;  the  French  romantic 
movement  passed  in  three  great  waves;  but  we  need  not 
make  the  distinction  here,  because  we  are  not  considering 
poetry,  for  want  of  time.  The  names  of  the  second  group 
especially  to  be  considered  are  Gerard  de  Nerval,  Louis  Ber- 
trand,  Charles  Baudelaire,  Gustave  Flaubert.  Nerval,  a 
friend  of  Gautier,  figured  much  later  than  Gautier  as  a  suc- 
cessful writer.  His  story  is  very  extraordinary.  Undoubt- 
edly he  was  a  little  mad,  and  it  is  possible  that  he  became 
mad  by  reason  of  a  love  affair.  But  he  was  never  too  mad 
to  write  the  most  wonderful  books.     As  a  mere  boy  he  made 


258  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

a  French  translation  of  Goethe's  "Faust"  which  Goethe  him- 
self judged  to  be  the  best  translation  in  existence.  At  one 
time  of  his  life  he  went  to  Egypt,  declared  himself  a  Mo- 
hamedan,  adopted  the  customs  of  the  country,  went  to  the 
slave  market  and  bought  himself  a  wife.  She  appears  to 
have  been  a  Turkish  girl  of  very  decided  character,  and  as 
soon  as  she  perceived  she  had  been  bought  by  a  madman, 
she  set  all  laws  and  customs  at  defiance  by  leaving  her 
would-be  husband  and  fleeing  to  Damascus — at  least  such 
is  the  story.  But  in  spite  of  this  disappointment  Nerval 
obtained  plenty  of  inspiration  from  his  experience  in  the 
East.  He  travelled  as  far  as  Jerusalem,  and  returned  to 
France  to  write  his  wonderful  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  Orientale," 
in  two  volumes,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  books  of  travel 
and  one  of  the  strangest  ever  produced.  There  is  contained 
in  it  perhaps  his  masterpiece  in  the  way  of  romance,  the  his- 
tory of  King  Solomon  and  of  Balkis,  the  Oueen  of  Sheba. 
This  narrative  is  quite  as  grand  as  anything  in  the  Arabian 
Nights.  Meyerbeer,  the  great  musician,  actually  wrote 
music  for  it  in  the  hope  of  producing  it  operatically  upon 
the  stage,  before  having  discovered  that  no  stage  could  ever 
be  built  large  enough  to  produce  such  a  drama.  For  the 
author's  imagination  was  enormous ;  his  pictures  represented 
vastness  of  scenery  such  as  really  could  be  observed  only 
from  the  tops  of  the  highest  mountains.  I  do  not  know 
whether  many  have  found  delight  in  this  wonderful  story, 
just  because  it  happens  to  be  in  a  book  of  travel.  But  the 
other  books  of  Nerval  are  very  well  known.  The  most 
familiar  is  "Les  Filles  de  Feu"  (Daughters  of  Fire),  terrible 
characters,  you  might  suppose,  but  they  are  very  gentle  girls 
indeed.  There  are  four  stories  each  with  a  woman's  name, 
and  each  delineating  some  particular  charm  of  female  char- 
acter. Of  course  they  are  very  queer,  unearthly  stories  for 
the  most  part,  but  the  first  is  astonishingly  human.  It  is 
supposed  to  be  the  narrative  of  a  damsel  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
who  leaves  her  father's  castle  secretly  in  company  with  an 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  259 

adventurer,  and  suffers  the  bitter  consequence  of  her  folly. 
It  is  very  touching,  almost  like  the  mediaeval  stories  of 
Balzac,  but  very  pure  and  told  in  a  style  wonderfully  simple. 
Nerval  went  through  France,  learning  peasants'  songs  from 
the  peasants,  just  as  Sir  Walter  Scott  did  when  preparing 
his  "Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border."  The  result  of 
these  pilgrimages  was  "La  Boheme  Galante,"  one  of  the 
most  delightful  books  on  folksong  ever  written.  The  chap- 
ter on  folk-song  is  only  a  part  of  the  book,  but  it  is  one  of  the 
notable  books  in  French  literature,  and  it  had  great  effect  in 
turning  the  attention  of  poets  to  the  value  of  popular  bal- 
lads. Miscellaneous  works  and  essays  by  Nerval  were  col- 
lected after  his  death  into  book  form;  and  you  will  find 
charming  things  in  the  collection.  The  best  of  all  is  a 
wonderful  short  story  called  "La  Main  Enchantee,"  first  en- 
titled "La  Main  de  Gloire,"  the  story  of  a  man  who  by  mak- 
ing a  particular  contract  with  the  devil  obtains  the  gift  of 
irresistible  power  in  his  sword  arm.  The  grotesqueness  of 
the  fancy  should  not  prejudice  you  against  the  story,  for 
the  value  of  the  story  is  quite  independent  of  the  theme. 
It  is  as  a  picture  of  the  Middle  Ages  that  the  tale  is  very 
great.  You  see  that  most  of  these  French  romantics  went 
to  the  Middle  Ages  for  their  fiction,  just  as  the  English  Pre- 
Raphaelites  did. 

De  Nerval,  romantic  as  he  was,  came  by  style  closer  to 
Merimee  than  to  Gautier;  his  method  was  very  plain  and 
very  pure.  A  new  kind  of  prose  was,  however,  on  the  verge 
of  appearing.  This  new  kind  of  prose  had  been  attempted 
in  England  a  little  by  Blake,  and  a  little  by  Coleridge,  but  it 
was  only  perfected  in  France.  I  mean  prose  poetry  in  the 
full  sense  of  the  word. 

Louis  Bertrand  is  an  important  name,  though  his  only 
famous  book,  "Gaspard  de  la  Nuit,"  is  now  out  of  print,  and 
difficult  to  obtain.  He  died  very  young  and  left  nothing 
else  of  importance.  But  this  little  book  had  very  great 
influence  upon  French  letters.    It  was  a  book  of  prose  poems, 


260  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

or,  if  you  like,  a  volume  of  prose  sketches  of  the  most 
romantic  kind,  in  which  every  sentence  had  the  rhythm  and 
quality  of  poetry,  and  all  the  text  was  divided  into  para- 
graphs like  the  verses  of  the  Bible.  Bertrand  played  very 
much  the  same  part  in  French  literature  as  Macpherson  did, 
with  his  Ossian,  in  England  in  the  latter  part  of  the  pre- 
vious century.  There  is  no  evidence  of  exactly  to  what 
extent  Bertrand  was  influenced  by  Ossian,  of  which  a  prose 
translation  was  then  very  popular  in  France,  but  it  is  prob- 
able that  he  was  to  some  degree  inspired  by  it.  Bertrand's 
book  did  not  attract  much  attention  with  the  public,  but 
men  of  letters  saw  its  merit,  and  the  poet  Baudelaire  seized 
upon  the  suggestion  which  it  offered  for  the  creation  of  a 
new  kind  of  prose.  The  value  of  Bertrand  was  really  the 
impulse  which  he  gave  to  Baudelaire. 

Charles  Baudelaire,  an  eccentric  and  perhaps  slightly 
mad  man  of  letters,  you  have  perhaps  heard  of  as  a  poet. 
He  wrote  the  most  extraordinary  volume  of  poetry  called 
"Fleurs  du  Mai"  (Flowers  of  Evil),  and  the  book  is  not 
badly  described  by  its  title.  As  poetry,  in  regard  to  form, 
nothing  better  was  produced  by  any  romantic,  but  the  sub- 
jects were  most  horrible,  dealing  with  crimes  and  with  re- 
morse, despair  and  other  unhealthy  emotions.  There  was 
also  a  strange  sensualism  in  the  book,  something  quite  exotic 
and  new.  But  we  are  now  dealing  chiefly  with  Baudelaire 
as  a  prose  writer,  and  you  should  know  that  he  was  quite  as 
great  in  prose  as  in  verse.  He  was  also  a  great  translator — 
translating  into  French  the  best  of  De  Ouincey  and  of  Edgar 
Poe.  He  himself  had  very  much  of  the  imagination  of 
Poe,  but  it  did  not  take  the  form  of  strange  stories.  Instead 
of  writing  stories,  he  wrote  very  short  romantic  sketches, 
each  representing  some  particular  mood,  experience  or  sor- 
row. And  these,  which  he  collected  into  one  volume,  un- 
der the  title  of  "Petits  Poemes  en  Prose,"  represented  the 
influence  of  Bertrand.  But  Baudelaire  was  much  greater 
than  Bertrand.     He  showed,  as  never  has  been  shown  be- 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  261 

fore,  the  extraordinary  resources  of  the  French  language  in 
prose  of  poetical  form.  A  year  ago  I  translated  for  you 
one  of  these  prose  studies,  a  little  composition  about  the 
moon,  and  you  may  remember  what  a  strange  thing  it  was. 
The  new  poetical  prose  was  fairly  established  by  the  publi- 
cation of  this  book.  But  such  prose  was  not  adapted  to  the 
writing  of  novels  and  long  stories.  It  could  only  be  used 
for  very  short  studies  of  a  highly  emotional  character. 
French  men  of  letters  have  since  been  using  the  style  only 
for  such  purposes,  and  perhaps  the  most  striking  follower 
of  Baudelaire  in  this  regard  was  the  historian  and  scholar 
Edgar  Quinet,  whose  wonderful  bit  of  prose  poetry  about  a 
cathedral,  "La  Cathedrale,"  you  will  find  in  Professor 
Saintsbury's  "Specimens  of  French  Literature." 

Yet  another  kind  of  prose  was  attempted  by  Gustave 
Flaubert,  the  greatest  of  the  second  romantic  group.  He 
was  very  much  influenced  by  both  Gautier  and  Baude- 
laire, and  he  tried  to  invent  a  style  that  would  combine 
both  forms  of  excellence — that  is,  would  give  all  the  effect 
of  the  ornate  prose  of  Gautier  and  of  the  melodious  prose  of 
Baudelaire.  He  therefore  especially  attempted  the  study 
of  words  in  themselves,  classing  them  according  to  colours, 
tones,  qualities  of  hardness  or  softness ;  and  he  attempted  to 
combine  them  into  a  musical  mosaic  of  a  new  sort.  In  this 
he  was  only  partially  successful.  There  are  two  mistakes 
in  the  attempt  to  create  such  a  style.  The  first  is  that  the 
highest  ornate  results  of  it  could  only  be  understood  by  a 
few  scholarly  men  of  letters ;  its  merits  never  could  appeal  to 
the  public.  The  other  mistake  is  due  to  the  supposition 
that  the  same  word  will  necessarily  produce  the  same  effect 
upon  all  cultured  minds.  Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  is 
the  mistake  still  shared  by  that  modern  class  of  small  ec- 
centric French  poets  called  Decadents.  The  same  word 
will  not  produce  the  same  effect  upon  differently  cultivated 
minds.  On  the  contrary,  the  same  word  is  likely  to  make  a 
distinctly  different  impression  upon  nine  hundred  out  of  a 


262  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

thousand  minds;  for  the  impression  produced  will  depend 
upon  the  mental  experience  of  the  reader,  which  is  never 
the  same  in  any  two  individuals.  Some  words  there  are,  as 
Gautier  well  knew,  which  will  produce  extraordinary  effects 
upon  large  classes  of  minds,  but  that  is  because  such  words 
make  an  appeal  to  certain  fundamental  feelings  which  are 
common  to  the  mass  of  healthy  imaginations.  Flaubert's 
theory  was  wrong,  but  as  he  was  a  great  genius,  he  could  not 
be  altogether  wrong,  and  he  gave  the  world  a  variety  of 
new  suggestions,  as  well  as  a  prose  scarcely  less  ornate  than 
Gautier's,  but  with  an  irregular  charm  of  a  new  kind.  He 
broke  down  traditional  conventions  of  form  as  boldly  as  did 
Carlyle  in  England.  But  he  was  wise  enough  to  perceive 
that  the  same  kind  of  prose  would  not  suit  all  kinds  of  liter- 
ary productions,  and  he  did  a  great  service  to  letters  by  writ- 
ing in  three  different  styles,  thus  showing  how  plain  or 
poetical  or  decorative  prose  was  adapted  to  different  sub- 
jects. He  thought  that  the  plain  prose  was  especially 
suited  to  the  novel  of  real  life,  and  in  this  style  he  wrote  his 
great  realistic  story,  "Madame  Bovary."  He  thought  that 
an  irregular,  fantastic,  highly  coloured  prose  was  best  suited 
to  romance  of  an  exotic  character,  and  in  this  style  he  wrote 
his  "Salammbo,"  which  is  a  story  of  ancient  Carthage;  also 
his  wonderful  "Trois  Contes,"  three  short  stories  of  extraor- 
dinary merit  as  literature.  Finally  he  had  an  idea  that 
dreams,  visions,  speculations,  notions  of  the  supernatural 
world,  could  best  be  treated  in  poetical  prose ;  and  he  wrote 
his  "Tentation  de  Saint  Antoine"  in  the  style  of  Baudelaire's 
prose  poems.  This  is  a  wonderful  book,  in  dramatic  form; 
all  the  gods,  all  the  religions,  all  the  philosophies  that  ever 
existed  in  the  world  appear  in  it,  each  being  described  in  an 
utterance  of  a  few  lines,  like  a  strain  of  music.  Beside  these 
books,  Flaubert  wrote  a  number  of  novels,  not  so  good. 
His  great  novel,  "L'Education  Sentimentale,"  is  not  read- 
able; it  is  a  tiresome  failure.  But  his  "Bouvard  et  Pecu- 
chet,"  the  most  terrible  satire  upon  human  folly  ever  writ- 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  263 

ten  since  the  days  of  Jonathan  Swift,  is  worth  reading,  and 
if  read,  it  can  never  be  forgotten.  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet 
are  two  bachelors  of  means,  who  resolved  to  pass  their  lives 
in  the  endeavour  to  master  some  science,  and  to  make  people 
as  happy  as  possible.  One  after  another,  medicine,  law, 
botany,  and  other  sciences  are  studied  and  abandoned,  be- 
cause the  deeper  problems  underlying  the  sciences  are  never 
properly  treated  by  the  teachers  of  them,  and  because  of  the 
hypocrisy  and  sham  connected  with  them.  As  for  trying  to 
make  people  happy,  their  experiences  with  the  adoption  of  a 
child  and  some  adventures  with  the  other  sex  cure  them  of 
their  faith  in  the  goodness  of  human  nature.  Though  no 
book  was  ever  more  funny  to  read,  no  book  was  ever  written 
which  leaves  so  sad  an  impression  upon  the  reader. 

The  greatest  followers  of  Flaubert  in  his  attempt  at  a 
fantastic  style  were  the  eccentric  novelists  known  as  the 
brothers  Goncourt.  These  men  dealt  chiefly  with  the  lives 
of  artists;  and  in  that  direction  their  "tormented  style" 
seems  to  harmonize  a  little  with  the  subject.  But  they  car- 
ried it  to  such  an  extravagant  extent  that  they  sometimes 
became  unintelligible.  The  great  novelist,  Alphonse  Dau- 
det,  often  compared  with  the  English  Dickens,  though  he 
might  be  more  justly  compared  with  Thackeray,  was  also 
considerably  influenced  by  Flaubert.  At  this  period  nov- 
elists began  to  swarm;  I  need  not  mention  more  names  be- 
cause I  am  only  tracing  the  history  of  a  movement.  But  in 
approaching  the  third  and  last  period  of  French  nineteenth 
century  literature,  I  may  call  your  attention  to  the  remark- 
able fact  that  the  great  romantic  Flaubert  was  the  literary 
father  of  the  greatest  realist  who  ever  lived,  greater  even 
than  Merimee — Guy  de  Maupassant.  This  is  good  proof 
of  Flaubert's  value  as  a  teacher.  He  understood  in  what 
direction  the  young  man's  strength  lay,  and  he  bade  him 
cultivate  that.  Regularly,  for  years,  Maupassant  used  to 
bring  him  work  to  criticize,  and  as  regularly  Flaubert  in- 
sisted that  the  work  should  be  thrown  into  the  fire.     One 


264  SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS 

knows  not  whether  to  admire  more  the  patient  severity  of 
the  master  or  the  heroic  submission  of  the  pupil.  The  result 
justified  the  means. 

And  now  while  speaking  of  that  result,  a  word  about 
another  movement  in  the  direction  of  realism.     Its  chief 
apostle,  Zola,  called  it  "Naturalism."     It  had  really  no 
other   father,    and   no   other    really    great    representative. 
Zola's  theory  was  that  life  should  be  depicted  exactly  as  it 
is,  not  only  with  natural  truth,  but  with  scientific  truth ;  and 
that  all  the  things  which  it  is  usually  called  wrong  to  write 
about,  ought  to  be  written  about  without  shame.     He  pre- 
tends to  follow  the  scientific  method  of  Comte,  which  is 
not  really  a  true  scientific  method;  but  what  he  did  follow 
with  more  success  was  the  scientific  teaching  of  inherited 
character.     Like  Balzac,  he  conceived  a  vast  series  of  novels, 
each  of  them  forming  a  chapter  in  the  history  of  a  simple 
family,  Rougon-Macquart ;  and  he  showed  how  the  result  of 
some  one  vice  in  the  life  of  an  ancestor  spread  moral  and 
physical  misery  through  the  lives  of  generations.     No  mat- 
ter what  critics  may  say — justly  say — about  Zola's  immor- 
ality, filthiness,  shamelessness,  there  can  be  no  question  of 
his  genius.     He  is  a  very  great  artist.     But  he  is  a  great 
artist  not  because  he  is  a  realist,  or  a  naturalist,  as  he  wished 
to  be  called;  he  is  a  great  artist  because  in  spite  of  all  his 
theories,  he  is  really  a  romantic — a  man  whose  imagination 
is  enormous  and  lurid,  and  perceives  in  exaggerated  form 
all  the  horrible  side  of  human  existence.     He  is  a  romancer 
of  vice,  of  foulness,  of  selfishness,  of  all  the  cruel  passions 
and  beastly  follies  that  civilization  produces.     His  realism 
lies  only  in  the  fact  that  he  uses  notes  as  they  never  were 
used  before.     For  example,  in  one  novel  he  tells  about 
everything  in  the  life  of  railways,  everything  about  engines, 
about  coaling,  about  the  qualities  of  boilers  used;  in  another 
novel  he  tells  everything  about  the  lives  of  boys  and  girls, 
men  and  women,  working  in  a  great  dry-goods  shop,  and  he 
explains  all  the  thousand  details  of  business.     So  far  he 


SOME  FRENCH  ROMANTICS  265 

taught  realism,  or  at  least  realistic  methods,  even  better  than 
Charles  Reade  did  in  England.  But  he  could  not  use  his 
facts  in  a  purely  realistic  way;  his  colossal  imagination  dis- 
torted and  exaggerated.  That  was  the  reason  why  his  fol- 
lowers— he  once  had  a  school — dropped  away  from  him  one 
after  another.  The  naturalistic  school  is  dead;  only  Zola 
lives,  and  he  lives  because  of  an  individual  genius  which 
is  not  naturalistic  at  all.  At  one  time  Maupassant  wrote 
under  his  direction,  producing  two  or  three  marvellous  stories 
that  astonished  the  world.  Everybody  saw  that  Maupas- 
sant was  greater  than  Zola;  but  everybody  said,  "This  is  not 
naturalism,  this  is  realism;  this  brings  us  back  to  the  days  of 
Prosper  Merimee.  Very  soon  Maupassant  left  the  shadow 
of  Zola,  and  worked  for  himself,  and  became  the  greatest 
story  teller  that  the  European  world  has  ever  seen. 

I  have  spoken  of  Maupassant  before;  you  know  that  he 
represents  the  purest  realism  and  the  simplest  style.  You 
have  seen  that  the  movement  in  France  of  prose  has  been  a 
good  deal  like  the  movement  in  England.  If  we  except  the 
extreme  forms  in  French  prose — the  prose  poetry  of  Baude- 
laire and  the  so-called  naturalism  of  Zola — the  movements 
are  very  much  alike.  In  both  countries  two  kinds  of  prose 
struggled  for  the  mastery,  the  ornate  kind  and  the  simple 
kind.  In  both  countries  the  great  masters  have  proved  that 
with  a  simple  style  all  the  effects  of  an  ornate  style  can  be 
produced.  In  both  countries  the  tendency  seems  to  be 
toward  sobriety  of  style.  But  the  French  remain  a  little  in 
advance  of  the  more  conservative  English;  they  have  learned 
the  teaching  of  Flaubert.  That  teaching,  put  into  its  sim- 
plest form,  is  this:  "Change  your  style  to  suit  your  subject." 
Undoubtedly  his  advice  represents  the  ultimate  truth,  which 
Englishmen  must  accept  at  a  later  day.  The  same  kind  of 
style  does  not  suit  all  possible  subjects.  Every  style  has  a 
particular  relative  value  of  its  own;  and  the  efforts  of  differ- 
ent schools,  even  the  follies  and  extravagances  of  them,  have 
been  of  lasting  service  to  the  evolution  of  literary  knowledge. 


CHAPTER  XV 
SOME  FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS 

Last  year  I  gave  a  lecture  on  the  subject  of  English 
poems  about  insects,  with  some  reference  to  the  old  Greek 
poems  on  the  same  subject.  But  I  did  not  then  have  an  op- 
portunity to  make  any  reference  to  French  poems  upon  the 
same  subject,  and  I  think  that  it  would  be  a  pity  not  to 
give  you  a  few  examples. 

Just  as  in  the  case  of  English  poems  about  insects,  nearly 
all  the  French  literature  upon  this  subject  is  new.  Insect 
poetry  belongs  to  the  newer  and  larger  age  of  thought,  to 
the  age  that  begins  to  perceive  the  great  truth  of  the  unity 
of  life.  We  no  longer  find,  even  in  natural  histories,  the 
insect  treated  as  a  mere  machine  and  unthinking  organism; 
on  the  contrary  its  habits,  its  customs  and  its  manifestation 
both  of  intelligence  and  instinct  are  being  very  carefully 
studied  in  these  times,  and  a  certain  sympathy,  as  well  as  a 
certain  feeling  of  respect  or  admiration,  may  be  found  in 
the  scientific  treatises  of  the  greatest  men  who  write  about 
insect  life.  So,  naturally,  Europe  is  slowly  returning  to  the 
poetical  standpoint  of  the  old  Greeks  in  this  respect.  It  is 
not  improbable  that  keeping  caged  insects  as  pets  may  again 
become  a  Western  custom,  as  it  was  in  Greek  times,  when 
cages  were  made  of  rushes  or  straw  for  the  little  creatures. 
I  suppose  you  have  heard  that  the  Japanese  custom  is  very 
likely  to  become  a  fashion  in  America.  If  that  should  really 
happen,  the  fact  would  certainly  have  an  effect  upon  poetry. 
I  think  that  it  is  very  likely  to  happen. 

The  French  poets  who  have  written  pretty  things  about 
insects  are  nearly  all  poets  of  our  own  times.  Some  of  them 
treat  the  subject  from  the  old  Greek  standpoint — indeed  the 
beautiful  poem  of  Heredia  upon  the  tomb  of  a  grasshopper 

266 


FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS  267 

is  perfectly  Greek,  and  reads  almost  like  a  translation  from 
the  Greek.  Other  poets  try  to  express  the  romance  of  in- 
sects in  the  form  of  a  monologue,  full  of  the  thought  of  our 
own  age.  Others  again  touch  the  subject  of  insects  only 
in  connection  with  the  subject  of  love.  I  will  give  one 
example  of  each  method,  keeping  the  best  piece  for  the  last, 
and  beginning  with  a  pretty  fancy  about  a  dragon  fly. 

MA  LIBELLULE 

En  te  voyant,  toute  mignonne, 
Blanche  dans  ta  robe  d'azure, 
Je  pensais  a  quelque  madone 
Drapee  en  un  peu  de  del  pur. 

Je  songeais  a  ces  belles  saintes 
Que  1'  on  voyait  au  temps  jadis 
Sourire  sur  les  vitres  peintes, 
Montrant  d'un  doigt  le  paradis: 

Et  j'aurais  voulu,  loin  du  monde 
Qui  passait  frivole  entre  nous, 
Dans  quelque  retraite  profonde 
T'  adorer  seul  a  deux  genoux. 

This  first  part  of  the  poem  is  addressed  of  course  to  a 
beautiful  child,  some  girl  between  the  age  of  childhood  and 
womanhood : 

"Beholding  thee,  Oh  darling  one,  all  white  in  thy  azure 
dress,  I  thought  of  some  figure  of  the  Madonna  robed  in  a 
shred  of  pure  blue  sky. 

'T  dreamed  of  those  beautiful  figures  of  saints  whom  one 
used  to  see  in  olden  times  smiling  in  the  stained  glass  of 
church  windows,  and  pointing  upward  to  Paradise. 

"And  I  could  have  wished  to  adore  you  alone  upon  my 
bended  knees  in  some  far  hidden  retreat,  away  from  the 
frivolous  world  that  passed  between  us." 

This  little  bit  of  ecstasy  over  the  beauty  and  purity  of  a 
child  is  pretty,  but  not  particularly  original.     However,  it 


268  FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS 

is  only  an  introduction.     Now  comes  the  pretty  part  of  the 
poem: 

Soudain  un  caprice  bizarre 

Change  la  scene  et  le  decor, 

Et  mon  esprit  au  loin  s'egare 

Sur  des  grands  pres  d'azure  et  d'or. 

Ou,  pres  de  ruisseaux  muscules 
Gazoulllants  comme  des  oiseaux, 
Se  poursuivent  les  libellules, 
Ces  fleurs  vivantes  des  roseaux. 

Enfant,  n'es  tu  pas  l'une  d'  elles 
Qui  me  poursuit  pour  consoler? 
Vainement  tu  caches  tes  ailes ; 
Tu  marches,  mais  tu  sais  voler. 

Petite  fee  au  bleu  corsage, 

Que  j'ai  connu  des  mon  berceau, 

En  revoyant  ton  doux  visage, 

Je  pense  aux  joncs  de  mon  ruisseau! 

Veux-tu  qu'en  amoureux  fideles 
Nous    revenions   dans   ces   pres    verts  ? 
Libellule,  reprends  tes  ailes ; 
Moi,  je  brulerai  tous  mes  vers! 

Et  nous  irons,  sous  la  lumiere, 
D'un  ciel  plus   frais  et  plus  leger 
Chacun  dans  sa  forme  premiere, 
Moi  courir,  et  toi  voltiger. 

"Suddenly  a  strange  fancy  changes  for  me  the  scene  and 
the  scenery;  and  my  mind  wanders  far  away  over  great 
meadows  of  azure  and  gold. 

"Where  hard  by  tiny  streams  that  murmur  with  a  sound 
like  voices  of  little  birds,  the  dragon-flies,  those  living  flowers 
of  the  reeds,  chase  each  other  at  play. 

"Child,  art  thou  not  one  of  those  dragon-flies,  following 
after  me  to  console  me?     Ah,  it  is  in  vain  that  thou  tryest 


FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS  269 

to  hide  thy  wings;  thou  dost  walk,  indeed,  but  well  thou 
knowest  how  to  fly ! 

"O  little  fairy  with  the  blue  corsage  whom  I  knew  even 
from  the  time  I  was  a  baby  in  the  cradle ;  seeing  again  thy 
sweet  face,  I  think  of  the  rushes  that  border  the  little 
stream  of  my  native  village ! 

"Dost  thou  not  wish  that  even  now  as  faithful  lovers  we 
return  to  those  green  fields'?  O  dragon-fly,  take  thy  wings 
again,  and  I — I  will  burn  all  my  poetry, 

"And  we  shall  go  back,  under  the  light  of  the  sky  more 
fresh  and  pure  than  this,  each  of  us  in  the  original  form — I 
to  run  about,  and  thou  to  hover  in  the  air  as  of  yore." 

The  sight  of  a  child's  face  has  revived  for  the  poet  very 
suddenly  and  vividly,  the  recollection  of  the  village  home, 
the  green  fields  of  childhood,  the  little  stream  where  he  used 
to  play  with  the  same  little  girl,  sometimes  running  after  the 
dragon-fly.  And  now  the  queer  fancy  comes  to  him  that 
she  herself  is  so  like  a  dragon-fly — so  light,  graceful,  spirit- 
ual !  Perhaps  really  she  is  a  dragon-fly  following  him  into 
the  great  city,  where  he  struggles  to  live  as  a  poet,  just  in 
order  to  console  him.  She  hides  her  wings,  but  that  is  only 
to  prevent  other  people  knowing.  Why  not  return  once 
more  to  the  home  of  childhood,  back  to  the  green  fields  and 
the  sun4?  "Little  dragon-fly,"  he  says  to  her,  "let  us  go 
back!  do  you  return  to  your  beautiful  summer  shape,  be  a 
dragon-fly  again,  expand  your  wings  of  gauze;  and  I  shall 
stop  trying  to  write  poetry.  I  shall  burn  my  verses ;  I  shall 
go  back  to  the  streams  where  we  played  as  children;  I  shall 
run  about  again  with  the  joy  of  a  child,  and  with  you  beau- 
tifully flitting  hither  and  thither  as  a  dragon-fly." 

Victor  Hugo  also  has  a  little  poem  about  a  dragon-fly, 
symbolic  only,  but  quite  pretty.  It  is  entitled  "La  Demoi- 
selle"; and  the  other  poem  was  entitled,  as  you  remember, 
"Ma  Libellule."  Both  words  mean  a  dragon-fly,  but  not 
the  same  kind  of  dragon-fly.  The  French  word  "demoi- 
selle," which  might  be  adequately  rendered  into  Japanese  by 


270  FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS 

the  term  "ojosan,"  refers  only  to  those  exquisitely  slender, 
graceful,  slow-flitting  dragon-flies  known  to  the  scientist  by 
the  name  of  Calopteryx.  Of  course  you  know  the  differ- 
ence by  sight,  and  the  reason  of  the  French  name  will  be 
poetically  apparent  to  you. 

Quand  la  demoiselle  doree 

S'envole  au  depart  des  hivers, 

Souvent  sa  robe  diapree, 

Souvent  sa  aile  est  dechiree 

Aux   mille    dards    des    buissons    verts. 

Ainsi,  jeunesse  vive  et  frele, 
Qui,  t'egarant  de  tous  cotes, 
Voles  ou  ton  instinct  t'appele, 
Souvent  tu  dechires  ton  aile 
Aux  epines  des  voluptes. 

"When,  at  the  departure  of  winter,  the  gilded  dragon-fly 
begins  to  soar,  often  her  many  coloured  robe,  often  her  wing, 
is  torn  by  the  thousand  thorns  of  the  verdant  shrubs. 

"Even  so,  O  frail  and  joyous  Youth,  who,  wandering 
hither  and  thither,  in  every  direction,  flyest  wherever  thy 
instinct  calls  thee — even  so  thou  dost  often  tear  thy  wings 
upon  the  thorns  of  pleasure." 

You  must  understand  that  pleasure  is  compared  to  a 
rose-bush,  whose  beautiful  and  fragrant  flowers  attract  the 
insects,  but  whose  thorns  are  dangerous  to  the  visitors. 
However,  Victor  Hugo  does  not  use  the  word  for  rose-bush, 
for  obvious  reasons;  nor  does  he  qualify  the  plants  which 
are  said  to  tear  the  wings  of  the  dragon-fly.  I  need  hardly 
tell  you  that  the  comparison  would  not  hold  good  in  refer- 
ence to  the  attraction  of  flowers,  because  dragon-flies  do  not 
care  in  the  least  about  flowers,  and  if  they  happen  to  tear 
their  wings  among  thorn  bushes,  it  is  much  more  likely  to  be 
in  their  attempt  to  capture  and  devour  other  insects.  The 
merit  of  the  poem  is  chiefly  in  its  music  and  colour;  as  nat- 
ural history  it  would  not  bear  criticism.     The  most  beauti- 


FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS  271 

ful  modern  French  poem  about  insects,  beautiful  because  of 
its  classical  perfection,  is  I  think  a  sonnet  by  Heredia,  en- 
titled "Epigramme  Funeraire" — that  is  to  say,  "Inscription 
for  a  Tombstone."  This  is  an  exact  imitation  of  Greek 
sentiment  and  expression,  carefully  studied  after  the  poets 
of  the  anthology.  Several  such  Greek  poems  are  extant, 
recounting  how  children  mourned  for  pet  insects  which  had 
died  in  spite  of  all  their  care.  The  most  celebrated  one 
among  these  I  quoted  in  a  former  lecture — the  poem  about 
the  little  Greek  girl  Myro  who  made  a  tomb  for  her  grass- 
hopper and  cried  over  it.  Heredia  has  very  well  copied 
the  Greek  feeling  in  this  fine  sonnet : 

Ici  git,  Etranger,  la  verte  sauterelle 
Que  durant  deux  saisons  nourrit  la  jeune  Helle, 
Et  dont  l'aile  vibrant  sous  le  pied  dentele. 
Bruissait  dans  le  pin,  le  cytise,  ou  l'airelle. 

Elle  s'est  tue,  helas !  la  lyre  naturelle, 
La  muse  des  guerets,  des  sillons  et  du  ble ; 
De  peur  que  son  leger  sommeil  ne  soit  trouble, 
Ah,  passe  vite,  ami,  ne  pese  point  sur  elle ! 

C'est  la,  Blanche,  au  milieu  d'une  touffe  de  thym, 

Sa  pierre  funeraire  est  fraichement  posee. 

Que  d'  hommes  n'ont  pas  eu  ce  supreme  destin! 

Des  larmes  d'  un  enfant  la  tombe  est  arrosee, 
Et  1'  Aurore  pieuse  y  fait  chaque  matin 
Une  libation  de  gouttes  de  rosee. 

"Stranger,  here  reposes  the  green  grasshopper  that  the 
young  girl  Helle  cared  for  during  two  seasons, — the  grass- 
hopper whose  wings,  vibrating  under  the  strokes  of  its  ser- 
rated feet,  used  to  resound  in  the  pine,  the  trefoil  and  the 
whortle-berry. 

"She  is  silent  now,  alas !  that  natural  lyre,  muse  of  the 
unsown  fields,  of  the  furrows,  and  of  the  wheat.     Lest  her 


272  FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS 

light  sleep  should  be  disturbed,  ah !  pass  quickly  friend !  do 
not  be  heavy  upon  her. 

"It  is  there.  All  white,  in  the  midst  of  a  tuft  of  thyme 
her  funeral  monument  is  placed,  in  cool  shadow ;  how  many 
men  have  not  been  able  to  have  this  supremely  happy  end ! 

"By  the  tears  of  a  child  the  insect's  tomb  is  watered;  and 
the  pious  goddess  of  dawn  each  morning  there  makes  a  liba- 
tion of  drops  of  dew." 

This  reads  very  imperfectly  in  a  hasty  translation;  the 
original  charm  is  due  to  the  perfect  art  of  the  form.  But 
the  whole  thing,  as  I  have  said  before,  is  really  Greek,  and 
based  upon  a  close  study  of  several  little  Greek  poems  on  the 
same  kind  of  subject.  Little  Greek  girls  thousands  of 
years  ago  used  to  keep  singing  insects  as  pets,  every  day 
feeding  them  with  slices  of  leek  and  with  fresh  water,  put- 
ting in  their  little  cages  sprigs  of  the  plants  which  they  liked. 
The  sorrow  of  the  child  for  the  inevitable  death  of  her  in- 
sect pets  at  the  approach  of  winter,  seems  to  have  inspired 
many  Greek  poets.  With  all  tenderness,  the  child  would 
make  a  small  grave  for  the  insect,  bury  it  solemnly,  and  put 
a  little  white  stone  above  the  place  to  imitate  a  grave-stone. 
But  of  course  she  would  want  an  inscription  for  this  tomb- 
stone— perhaps  would  ask  some  of  her  grown-up  friends  to 
compose  one  for  her.  Sometimes  the  grown-up  friend  might 
be  a  poet,  in  which  case  he  would  compose  an  epitaph  for  all 
time. 

I  suppose  you  perceive  that  the  solemnity  of  this  imitation 
of  the  Greek  poems  on  the  subject  is  only  a  tender  mockery, 
a  playful  sympathy  with  the  real  grief  of  the  child.  The 
expression,  "pass,  friend,"  is  often  found  in  Greek  funeral 
inscriptions  together  with  the  injunction  to  tread  lightly 
upon  the  dust  of  the  dead.  There  is  one  French  word  to 
which  I  will  call  attention, — the  word  "guerets."  We  have 
no  English  equivalent  for  this  term,  said  to  be  a  corruption 
of  the  Latin  word  "veractum,"  and  meaning  fields  which 
have  been  ploughed  but  not  sown. 


FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS  273 

Not  to  dwell  longer  upon  the  phase  of  art  indicated  by 
this  poem,  I  may  turn  to  the  subject  of  crickets.  There  are 
many  French  poems  about  crickets.  One  by  Lamartine  is 
known  to  almost  every  French  child. 

Grillon  solitaire, 
Ici  comme  moi, 
Voix  qui  sors  de  terre, 
Ah !  reveille-toi ! 
J'attise  la  flamme, 
C'est  pour  t'egayer; 
Mais  il  manque  une  ame 
Une  ame  au  foyer. 

Grillon  solitaire, 
Voix  qui  sors  de  terre, 
Ah !  reveille-toi 
Pour  moi. 

Quand  j'etais  petite 
Comme  ce  berceau, 
Et  que  Marguerite 
Filait  son  fuseau, 
Quand  le  vent  d'automne 
Faisait  tout  gemir, 
Ton  cri  monotone 
M'aidait  a  dormir. 

Grillon  solitaire, 
Voix  qui  sors  de  terre, 
Ah !  reveille-toi 
Pour  moi. 

Seize  fois  l'anne 
A  compte  mes  jeurs; 
Dans  la  cheminee 
Je  t'ecoute  encore 
Aux    froides    saisons, 
Souvenir  sonore 
Des  vieilles  maisons. 


274-  FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS 

Grillon  solitaire, 
Voix  qui  sors  de  terre, 
Ah !  reveille-toi 
Pour  moi. 

It  is  a  young  girl  who  thus  addresses  the  cricket  of  the 
hearth,  the  house  cricket.  It  is  very  common  in  country 
houses  in  Europe.     This  is  what  she  says : 

"Little  solitary  cricket,  all  alone  here  just  like  myself, 
little  voice  that  comes  up  out  of  the  ground,  ah,  awake 
for  my  sake !  I  am  stirring  up  the  fires,  that  is  just  to  make 
you  comfortable ;  but  there  lacks  a  presence  by  the  hearth ;  a 
soul  to  keep  me  company. 

"When  I  was  a  very  little  girl,  as  little  as  that  cradle  in 
the  corner  of  the  room,  then,  while  Margaret  our  servant 
sat  there  spinning,  and  while  the  autumn  wind  made  every- 
thing moan  outside,  your  monotonous  cry  used  to  help  me  to 
fall  asleep. 

"Solitary  cricket,  voice  that  issues  from  the  ground, 
awaken,  for  my  sake. 

"Now  I  am  sixteen  years  of  age  and  you  are  still  nestling 
in  the  chimneys  as  of  old.  I  can  hear  you  still  in  the  cold 
season, — like  a  sound — memory, — a  sonorous  memory  of 
old  houses. 

"Solitary  cricket,  voice  that  issues  from  the  ground, 
awaken,  O  awaken  for  my  sake." 

I  do  not  think  this  pretty  little  song  needs  any  explana- 
tion; I  would  only  call  your  attention  to  the  natural  truth 
of  the  fancy  and  the  feeling.  Sitting  alone  by  the  fire  in 
the  night,  the  maiden  wants  to  hear  the  cricket  sing,  because 
it  makes  her  think  of  her  childhood,  and  she  finds  happiness 
Ii  remembering  it. 

So  far  as  mere  art  goes,  the  poem  of  Gautier  on  the  cricket 
is  very  much  finer  than  the  poem  of  Lamartine,  though  not 
so  natural  and  pleasing.  But  as  Gautier  was  the  greatest 
master  of  French  verse  in  the  nineteenth  century,  not  except- 
ing Victor  Hugo,  I  think  that  one  example  of  his  poetry  on 


FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS  275 

insects  may  be  of  interest.  He  was  very  poor,  compared 
with  Victor  Hugo;  and  he  had  to  make  his  living  by  writing 
for  newspapers,  so  that  he  had  no  time  to  become  the  great 
poet  that  nature  intended  him  to  be.  However,  he  did  find 
time  to  produce  one  volume  of  highly  finished  poetry,  which 
is  probably  the  most  perfect  verse  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
if  not  the  most  perfect  verse  ever  made  by  a  French  poet;  I 
mean  the  "Emaux  et  Camees."  But  the  little  poem  which 
I  am  going  to  read  to  you  is  not  from  the  "Emaux  et 
Camees." 

Souffle,  bise  !     Tombe  a  flots,  pluie ! 

Dans  mons  palais  tout  noir  de  suie 

Je  ris  de  la  pluie  et  du  vent; 

En  attendant  que  l'hiver  fuie, 

Je  reste  au  coin  du  feu,  revant. 

C'est  moi  qui  suis  l'esprit  de  l'atre ! 
Le  gaz,  de  sa  langue  bleuatre, 
Leche  plus  doucement  le  bois. 
La  fumee  en  filet  d'albatre, 
Monte  et  se  contourne  a.  ma  voix. 

La  bouilloire  rit  et  babille; 

La  flamme  aux  pieds  d'argent  sautille 

En  accompagnant  ma  chanson ; 

La  buche  de  duvet  s'habille; 

La  seve  bout  dans  le  tison. 


Pendant  la  nuit  et  la  journee 
Je  chante  sous  la  cheminee ; 
Dans  mon  langage  de  grillon, 
J'ai,  des  rebuts  de  son  ainee, 
Souvent  console  Cendrillon. 


Quel  plaisir !     Prolonger  sa  veille, 
Regarder  la  flamme  vermeille 
Prenant  a  deux  bras  le  tison, 
A  tous  les  bruits  preter  l'oreille, 
Entendre  vivre  la  maison. 


276  FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS 

Tapi  dans  sa  niche  bien  chaude, 
Sentir  l'hiver  qui  pleure  et  rode, 
Tout  bleme,  et  le  nez  violet, 
Tachant  de  s'introduire  en  fraude 
Par  quelque  fente  du  volet! 

This  poem  is  especially  picturesque,  and  is  intended  to 
give  us  the  comfortable  sensations  of  a  winter  night  by  the 
fire,  and  the  amusement  of  watching  the  wood  burn  and  of 
hearing  the  kettle  boiling.  You  will  find  that  the  French 
has  a  particular  quality  of  lucid  expression;  it  is  full  of 
clearness  and  colour. 

"Blow  on,  cold  wind !  pour  down,  O  rain.  I,  in  my  soot- 
black  palace  laugh  at  both  rain  and  wind;  and  while  wait- 
ing for  winter  to  pass  I  remain  in  my  corner  by  the  fire 
dreaming. 

"It  is  I  that  am  really  the  spirit  of  the  hearth!  The 
gaseous  flame  licks  the  wood  more  softly  with  its  bluish 
tongue  when  it  hears  me;  and  the  smoke  rises  up  like  an 
alabaster  thread,  and  curls  itself  about  (or  twists)  at  the 
sound  of  my  voice. 

"The  kettle  chuckles  and  chatters;  the  golden-footed 
flame  leaps,  dancing  to  the  accompaniment  of  my  song  (or 
in  accompaniment  to  my  song) ;  the  great  log  covers  itself 
with  down,  the  sap  boils  in  the  wooden  embers  ("duvet," 
meaning  "down,"  refers  to  the  soft  fluffy  white  ash  that 
forms  upon  the  surface  of  burning  wood). 

"All  night  and  all  day  I  sing  below  the  chimney.  Often 
in  my  cricket-language,  I  have  consoled  Cinderella  for  the 
snubs  of  her  elder  sister. 

"Ah,  what  pleasure  to  sit  up  at  night,  and  watch  the 
crimson  flames  embracing  the  wood  (or  hugging  the  wood) 
with  both  arms  at  once,  and  to  listen  to  all  the  sounds,  and 
to  hear  the  life  of  the  house ! 

"Nestling  in  one's  good  warm  nook,  how  pleasant  to  hear 
Winter,  who  weeps  and  prowls  round  about  the  house  out- 


FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS  277 

« 

side,  all  wan  and  blue-nosed  with  cold,  trying  to  smuggle 
itself  inside  some  chink  in  the  shutter!" 

Of  course  this  does  not  give  us  much  about  the  insect  it- 
self, which  remains  invisible  in  the  poem,  just  as  it  really 
remains  invisible  in  the  house  where  the  voice  is  heard. 
Rather  does  the  poem  express  the  feelings  of  the  person  who 
hears  the  cricket. 

When  we  come  to  the  subject  of  grasshoppers,  I  think 
that  the  French  poets  have  done  much  better  than  the  Eng- 
lish. There  are  many  poems  on  the  field  grasshopper;  I 
scarcely  know  which  to  quote  first.  But  I  think  you  would 
be  pleased  with  a  little  composition  by  the  celebrated  French 
painter,  Jules  Breton.  Like  Bossetti  he  was  both  painter 
and  poet;  and  in  both  arts  he  took  for  his  subjects  by  pref- 
erence things  from  country  life.  This  little  poem  is  en- 
titled "Les  Cigales."  The  word  "cigales,"  though  really 
identical  with  our  word  "cicala,"  seldom  means  the  same 
thing.  Indeed  the  French  word  may  mean  several  different 
kinds  of  insects,  and  it  is  only  by  studying  the  text  that  we 
can  feel  quite  sure  what  sort  of  insect  is  meant. 

Lorsque  dans  l'herbe  mure  aucun  epi  ne  bouge, 
Qua.  l'ardeur  des  rayons  crepite  le  frement, 
Que  le  coquelicot  tombe  languissament 
Sous  le  faible  fardeau  de  sa  corolle  rouge, 

Tous  les  oiseaux  de  l'air  ont  fait  taire  leur  chants ; 
Les  ramiers  paresseux,  au  plus  noir  des  ramures, 
Somnolents,  dans  les  bois,  ont  cesse  leurs  murmures 
Loin  du  soleil  muet  incendiant  les  champs. 

Dans  le  ble,  cependant,  d'intrepides  cigales 
Jetant  leurs  mille  bruits,  fanfare  de  1'ete, 
Ont  frenetiquement  et  sans  treve  agite 
Leurs  ailes  sur  l'airaine  de  leurs  folles  cymbales. 

Tremoussantes,  deboutes  sur  les  longs  epis  d'or, 
Virtuoses  qui  vont  s'eteindre  avant  l'automne, 


278  FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS 

Elles  poussent  au  ciel  leur  hymne  monotone 
Que  dans  l'ombre  des  nuits  retentisse  encore. 

Et  rien  n'arretera  leurs  cris  intarissables ; 
Quand  on  les  chassera  de  l'avoine  et  des  bles. 
Elles  emigreront  sur  les  buissons  brules 
Qui  se  meurent  de  soif  dans  les  deserts  de  sable. 

Sur  l'arbuste  effeuille,  sur  les  chardons  fletris 
Qui  laissent  s'envoler  leur  blanche  chevelure, 
On  reverra  l'insecte  a  la  forte  encolure, 
Pleine  d'ivresse,  toujours  s'exalter  dans  ses  cris. 

Jusqu'a  ce  qu'  ouvrant  l'aile  en  lambeaux  arrachee, 
Exaspere,  brulant  d'un  feu  toujours  plus  pur, 
Son  oeil  de  bronze  fixe  et  tendu  vers  l'azur, 
II  expire  en  chantant  sur  la  tige  sechee. 

For  the  word  "encolure"  we  have  no  English  equivalent; 
it  means  the  line  of  the  neck  and  shoulder — sometimes  the 
general  appearance  or  shape  of  the  body. 

"When  in  the  ripening  grain  field  not  a  single  ear  of 
wheat  moves;  when  in  the  beaming  heat  the  corn  seems  to 
crackle;  when  the  poppy  languishes  and  bends  down  under 
the  feeble  burden  of  its  scarlet  corolla, 

"Then  all  the  birds  of  the  air  have  hushed  their  songs; 
even  the  indolent  doves,  seeking  the  darkest  part  of  the  foli- 
age in  the  tree,  have  become  drowsy  in  the  woods,  and  have 
ceased  their  cooing,  far  from  the  fields,  which  the  silent  sun 
is  burning. 

"Nevertheless,  in  the  wheat,  the  brave  grasshoppers  utter- 
ing their  thousand  sounds,  a  trumpet  flourish  of  summer, 
have  continued  furiously  and  unceasingly  to  smite  their 
wings  upon  the  brass  of  their  wild  cymbal. 

"Quivering  as  they  stand  upon  the  long  gold  ears  of  the 
grain,  master  musicians  who  must  die  before  the  coming  of 
Fall,  they  sound  to  heaven  their  monotonous  hymn,  which 
re-echoes  even  in  the  darkness  of  the  night. 

"And  nothing  will  check  their  inexhaustible  shrilling. 


FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS  279 

When  chased  away  from  the  oats  and  from  the  wheat,  they 
will  migrate  to  the  scorched  bushes  which  die  of  thirst  in  the 
wastes  of  sand. 

"Upon  the  leafless  shrubs,  upon  the  dried  up  thistles, 
which  let  their  white  hair  fall  and  float  away,  there  the 
sturdify-built  insect  can  be  seen  again,  filled  with  enthusiasm, 
ever  more  and  more  excited  as  he  cries, 

"Until,  at  last,  opening  his  wings,  now  rent  into  shreds, 
exasperated,  burning  more  and  more  fiercely  in  the  frenzy  of 
his  excitement,  and  with  his  eyes  of  bronze  always  fixed  mo- 
tionlessly  upon  the  azure  sky,  he  dies  in  his  song  upon  the 
withered  grain." 

This  is  difficult  to  translate  at  all  satisfactorily,  owing  to 
the  multitude  of  images  compressed  together.  But  the  idea 
expressed  is  a  fine  one — the  courage  of  the  insect  challenging 
the  sun,  and  only  chanting  more  and  more  as  the  heat  and 
the  thirst  increase.  The  poem  has,  if  you  like,  the  fault  of 
exaggeration,  but  the  colour  and  music  are  very  fine;  and 
even  the  exaggeration  itself  has  the  merit  of  making  the 
image  more  vivid. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  quote  another  text;  we  shall 
scarcely  have  the  time ;  but  I  want  to  translate  to  you  some- 
thing of  another  poem  upon  the  same  insect  by  the  modern 
French  poet  Jean  Aicard.  In  this  poem,  as  in  the  little 
poem  by  Gautier,  which  I  quoted  to  you,  the  writer  puts  his 
thought  in  the  mouth  of  the  insect,  so  to  say — that  is,  makes 
the  insect  tell  its  own  story. 

"I  am  the  impassive  and  noble  insect  that  sings  in  the 
summer  solstice  from  the  dazzling  dawn  all  the  day  long 
in  the  fragrant  pine-wood.  And  my  song  is  always  the 
same,  regular  as  the  equal  course  of  the  season  and  of  the 
sun.  I  am  the  speech  of  the  hot  and  beaming  sun,  and  when 
the  reapers,  weary  of  heaping  the  sheaves  together,  lie  down 
in  the  lukewarm  shade,  and  sleep  and  pant  in  the  ardour  of 
noonday — then  more  than  at  any  other  time  do  I  utter 
freely  and  joyously  that  double-echoing  strophe  with  which 


280  FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS 

my  whole  body  vibrates.  And  when  nothing  else  moves 
in  all  the  land  round  about,  I  palpitate  and  loudly  sound 
my  little  drum.  Otherwise  the  sunlight  triumphs;  and  in 
the  whole  landscape  nothing  is  heard  but  my  cry, — like  the 
joy  of  the  light  itself. 

"Like  a  butterfly  I  take  up  from  the  hearts  of  the  flowers 
that  pure  water  which  the  night  lets  fall  into  them  like 
tears.  I  am  inspired  only  by  the  almighty  sun.  Socrates 
listened  to  me;  Virgil  made  mention  of  me.  I  am  the  insect 
especially  beloved  by  the  poets  and  by  the  bards.  The 
ardent  sun  reflects  himself  in  the  globes  of  my  eyes.  My 
ruddy  bed,  which  seems  to  be  powdered  like  the  surface  of 
fine  ripe  fruit,  resembles  some  exquisite  key-board  of  silver 
and  gold,  all  quivering  with  music.  My  four  wings,  with 
their  delicate  net-work  of  nerves,  allow  the  bright  down 
upon  my  black  back  to  be  seen  through  their  transparency. 
And  like  a  star  upon  the  forehead  of  some  divinely  inspired 
poet,  three  exquisitely  mounted  rubies  glitter  upon  my  head." 

These  are  fair  examples  of  the  French  manner  of  treating 
the  interesting  subject  of  insects  in  poetry.  If  you  should 
ask  me  whether  the  French  poets  are  better  than  the  English, 
I  should  answer,  "In  point  of  feeling,  no."  The  real  value 
of  such  examples  to  the  student  should  be  emotional,  not 
descriptive.  I  think  that  the  Japanese  poems  on  insects, 
though  not  comparable  in  point  of  mere  form  with  some 
of  the  foreign  poems  which  I  have  quoted,  are  better  in  an- 
other way — they  come  nearer  to  the  true  essence  of  poetry. 
For  the  Japanese  poets  have  taken  the  subject  of  insects 
chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  suggesting  human  emotion;  and 
that  is  certainly  the  way  in  which  such  a  subject  should  be 
used.  Remember  that  this  is  an  age  in  which  we  are  be- 
ginning to  learn  things  about  insects  which  could  not  have 
been  even  imagined  fifty  years  ago,  and  the  more  that  we 
learn  about  these  miraculous  creatures,  the  more  difficult 
does  it  become  for  us  to  write  poetically  about  their  lives, 
or  about  their  possible  ways  of  thinking  and  feeling.     Prob- 


FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS  281 

ably  no  mortal  man  will  ever  be  able  to  imagine  how  in- 
sects think  or  feel  or  hear  or  even  see.  Not  only  are  their 
senses  totally  different  from  those  of  animals,  but  they  ap- 
pear to  have  a  variety  of  special  senses  about  which  we 
cannot  know  anything  at  all.  As  for  their  existence,  it  is 
full  of  facts  so  atrocious  and  so  horrible  as  to  realize  most 
of  the  imaginations  of  old  about  the  torments  of  hell.  Now, 
for  these  reasons  to  make  an  insect  speak  in  poetry — to  put 
one's  thoughts,  so  to  speak,  into  the  mouth  of  an  insect — is 
no  longer  consistent  with  poetical  good  judgment.  No;  we 
must  think  of  insects  either  in  relation  to  the  mystery  of 
their  marvellous  lives,  or  in  relation  to  the  emotion  which 
their  sweet  and  melancholy  music  makes  within  our  minds. 
The  impressions  produced  by  hearing  the  shrilling  of 
crickets  at  night  or  by  hearing  the  storm  of  cicadae  in  sum- 
mer woods — those  impressions  indeed  are  admirable  sub- 
jects for  poetry,  and  will  continue  to  be  for  all  time. 

When  I  lectured  to  you  long  ago  about  Greek  and  Eng- 
lish poems  on  insects,  I  told  you  that  nearly  all  the  English 
poems  on  the  subject  were  quite  modern.  I  still  believe 
that  I  was  right  in  this  statement,  as  a  general  assertion; 
but  I  have  found  one  quaint  poem  about  a  grasshopper, 
which  must  have  been  written  about  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  or,  perhaps  a  little  earlier.  The  date  of  the 
author's  birth  and  death  are  respectively  1618  and  1658. 
His  name,  I  think,  you  are  familiar  with — Richard  Love- 
lace, author  of  many  amatory  poems,  and  of  one  especially 
famous  song,  "To  Lucasta,  on  going  to  the  Wars" — con- 
taining the  celebrated  stanza — 

Yet  this  inconstancy  is  such 

As  you  too  shall  adore; 
I  could  not  love  thee,  Dear,  so  much, 

Loved  I  not  honour  more. 

Well,  as  I  said,  this  man  wrote  one  pretty  little  poem  on  a 
grasshopper,  which  antedates  most  of  the  English  poems  on 
insects,  if  not  all  of  them. 


282  FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS 

THE  GRASSHOPPER 

O  Thou  that  swing'st  upon  the  waving  ear 

Of  some  well-filled  oaten  beard, 
Drunk  every  night  with  a  delicious  tear 

Dropt  thee  from  heaven,  where  now  th'art  rear'd ! 

The  joys  of  earth  and  air  are  thine  entire, 

That  with  thy  feet  and  wings  dost  hop  and  fly ; 

And  when  thy  poppy  works,  thou  dost  retire 
To  thy  carved  acorn-bed  to  lie. 

Up  with  the  day,  the  Sun  thou  welcom'st  then, 

Sport'st  in  the  gilt  plaits  of  his  beams, 
And  all  these  merry  days  mak'st  merry  men 

Thyself,  and  melancholy  streams. 

A  little  artificial,  this  poem  written  at  least  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago;  but  it  is  pretty  in  spite  of  its  artifice. 
Some  of  the  conceits  are  so  quaint  that  they  must  be  ex- 
plained. By  the  term  "oaten  beard,"  the  poet  means  an 
ear  of  oats;  and  you  know  that  the  grain  of  this  plant  is 
furnished  with  very  long  hair,  so  that  many  poets  have 
spoken  of  the  bearded  oats.  You  may  remember  in  this 
connection  Tennyson's  phrase  "the  bearded  barley"  in  the 
"Lady  of  Shalott,"  and  Longfellow's  term  "bearded  grain" 
in  his  famous  poem  about  the  Reaper  Death.  When  a  per- 
son's beard  is  very  thick,  we  say  in  England  today  "a  full 
beard,"  but  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare  they  used  to  say  "a 
well  filled  beard" — hence  the  phrase  in  the  second  line  of 
the  first  stanza. 

In  the  third  line  the  term  "delicious  tear"  means  dew, — 
which  the  Greeks  called  the  tears  of  the  night,  and  some- 
times the  tears  of  the  dawn;  and  the  phrase  "drunk  with 
dew"  is  quite  Greek — so  we  may  suspect  that  the  author  of 
this  poem  had  been  reading  the  Greek  Anthology.  In  the 
third  line  of  the  second  stanza  the  word  "poppy"  is  used 
for  sleep — a  very  common  simile  in  Elizabethan  times,  be- 


FRENCH  POEMS  ON  INSECTS  283 

cause  from  the  poppy  flower  was  extracted  the  opiate  which 
enables  sick  persons  to  sleep.  The  Greek  authors  spoke  of 
poppy  sleep.  "And  when  thy  poppy  works,"  means,  when 
the  essence  of  sleep  begins  to  operate  upon  you,  or  more 
simply,  when  you  sleep.  Perhaps  the  phrase  about  the 
"carved  acorn-bed"  may  puzzle  you;  it  is  borrowed  from 
the  fairy-lore  of  Shakespeare's  time,  when  fairies  were  said 
to  sleep  in  little  beds  carved  out  of  acorn  shells;  the  simile 
is  used  only  by  way  of  calling  the  insect  a  fairy  creature. 
In  the  second  line  of  the  third  stanza  you  may  notice  the 
curious  expression  about  the  "gilt  plaits"  of  the  sun's  beams. 
It  was  the  custom  in  those  days,  as  it  still  is  in  these,  for 
young  girls  to  plait  their  long  hair;  and  the  expression 
"gilt  plaits"  only  means  braided  or  plaited  golden  hair. 
This  is  perhaps  a  Greek  conceit;  for  classic  poets  spoke  of 
the  golden  hair  of  the  Sun  God  as  illuminating  the  world. 
I  have  said  that  the  poem  is  a  little  artificial,  but  I  think 
you  will  find  it  pretty,  and  even  the  whimsical  similes  are 
"precious"  in  the  best  sense. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
NOTE  UPON  AN  UGLY  SUBJECT 

The  ugly  subject  is  the  literature  of  hate. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  chiefly  and  properly  concerned 
with  the  literature  of  higher  things — love,  beauty,  heroism, 
courage.  Can  there  be  a  literature  of  ugliness  ? — or,  is 
moral  ugliness  or  any  kind  of  ugliness  a  fit  subject  for  art? 

Do  you  know  that  this  is  a  very  hard  question  to  answer 
in  these  days?  The  old  Greeks  would  have  answered  it 
unqualifiedly.  Perhaps  that  is  the  best  way  to  answer  it. 
We  need  not  long  discuss  whether  a  single  statue  or  a  single 
picture  of  something  merely  ugly  and  foul  ought  to  be  made 
or  not.  The  public  judgment  would  answer  such  a  question 
effectively.  But  it  is  very  different  if  we  ask  whether  there 
is  any  reason  for  representing  the  ugly  figure  in  a  general 
way.  Drama  at  once  furnishes  us  an  answer.  The  figures 
of  drama  are  horrible  as  well  as  beautiful,  bad  as  well  as 
good, — and  the  greater  the  dramatist,  as  a  rule,  the  greater 
the  evil  in  his  bad  character.  In  Shakespeare,  for  example, 
the  dark  side  serves  to  make  visible  the  bright  side;  evil  is 
the  shadow  that  brings  out  the  brilliancy  of  the  picture. 

So  there  can  be  no  dispute  as  to  the  place  of  the  evil  and 
the  ugly  in  drama  and  in  dramatic  fiction.  But  it  is  quite 
another  matter,  when  we  have  to  consider  an  attempt  to 
portray  the  ugliness  and  the  evil  all  by  itself.  Is  that 
right?  Is  it  art?  I  do  not  think  it  is.  But  if  I  say  that 
I  do  not  think  it  is  right,  I  am  raising  at  once  an  endless 
and  perfectly  useless  question  about  the  moral  purpose  in 
art.  If  I  were  asked  to  give  a  reason  why  I  do  not  think 
it  is  right  to  represent  what  is  ugly  in  a  statue  or  in  a  pic- 
ture, I  should  be  obliged  to  take  refuge  in  an  emotional  ex- 
pression of  the  feelings  which  the  ugly  arouses  in  me.     So 

284 


AN  UGLY  SUBJECT  285 

that  my  argument  would  be  reduced  to  something  like  this : 
"I  do  not  like  it,  because  it  hurts  my  feelings,  grates  upon 
my  nerves,  spoils  my  pleasure  in  life."  And  that  is  only 
a  personal  argument.  Not  all  people  feel  the  same  way. 
There  was  a  Spanish  painter  who  used  to  paint  putrefied 
corpses,  and  he  still  has  admirers. 

Now  the  literature  of  satire  mostly  belongs  to  the  ugly 
side  of  existence.  When  we  were  considering  the  history 
of  eighteenth  century  literature,  we  were  obliged  to  remark 
the  cruelty  and  malignity  which  the  literary  men  displayed 
in  that  age.  They  wrote,  in  the  most  perfect  of  verse, 
the  most  abominable  things  about  each  other;  they  very 
frequently  slandered  each  other  in  a  most  shameful  man- 
ner; with  words  they  painted  pictures  of  each  other  quite 
as  horrible  as  those  pictures  of  rotten  corpses  which  the 
Spanish  artist  made.  And,  like  that  Spanish  artist,  they 
still  have  admirers.  Students  are  obliged  as  a  duty  to  read 
some  of  the  eighteenth  century  satires;  all  the  great  critics 
admire  them.  Good  old  Dr.  Johnson  did  not;  he  declared 
the  most  admired  of  them  to  be  a  useless  display  of  ma- 
lignity and  jealousy.  But  people  laugh  at  Dr.  Johnson's 
moral  judgment  in  these  days.  Much  greater  scholars  than 
Dr.  Johnson  persist  in  praising  many  things  that  he  con- 
demned. 

In  the  face  of  this  high  testimony  to  the  value  of  the 
satirical  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century,  we  cannot 
merely  rely  like  Dr.  Johnson  upon  our  moral  feelings.  We 
must  think  about  the  matter — we  must  try  to  find  a  good 
clear  reason  for  the  praise  given  to  wicked  things  cleverly 
said  by  men  like  Pope.  Are  we  to  praise  clever  wicked- 
ness? Have  we  any  right  to  admire  it?  Or  would  not 
such  admiration  be  proof  that  we  are  not  particularly  good 
ourselves? 

The  real  answer  to  the  problem  can  only  be  found  by 
the  perception  of  something  in  the  wicked  cleverness  which 
is  not  wicked  cleverness.     Here  excellence  of  verse  forms 


286  AN  UGLY  SUBJECT 

does  not  explain  the  matter  at  all.  There  must  be  some- 
thing else — something  that  is  not  false  but  true.  Now  what 
is  this  thing1? 

It  is  truth  in  the  delineation,  not  of  a  man,  but  of  a 
type. 

There  is  the  secret  of  the  admiration  still  given  to  some 
of  the  unjust  and  cruel  satires  of  Pope  and  of  his  school. 
It  is  not  because  the  satires  were  true  pictures  or  caricatures 
of  any  living  person  in  particular,  but  because  they  were 
true  pictures  of  general  types  of  human  weakness  which 
have  always  existed,  which  exist  today  and  which  will 
exist  tomorrow.  By  their  general  truth  they  lived,  and 
for  nothing  else  can  they  be  admired.  And,  observe,  when- 
ever Pope's  satires  do  not  reflect  something  larger  than  per- 
sonal hate,  nobody  admires  him.  It  is  only  when  the  per- 
sonal hate  has  given  him  eyes  to  see  larger  facts,  that  we 
may  really  praise  the  utterance  of  the  hatred.  No  better 
example  of  the  power  to  see  a  type  and  to  fix  that  type 
need  be  quoted  than  the  few  lines  of  Pope's  very  best 
satire,  the  lines  about  Addison.  I  think  you  have  read 
enough  about  Addison  to  know  that  Pope's  picture  of  him 
was  not  true,  that  Pope  himself  afterwards  acknowledged 
that  it  was  not  true,  that  Addison  was  a  gentle,  courteous, 
correct,  and  somewhat  cold  person,  but  not  a  hypocrite  nor 
a  sneak.  Yet  for  a  moment  Pope  suspecting  him  of  a  mean 
act,  conceived  a  picture  of  hypocrisy  and  meanness,  such  as 
had  never  before  been  written,  and  he  printed  it.  Let  us 
read  a  few  lines: 

Should  such  a  man,  too  fond  to  rule  alone, 
Bear,  like  the  Turk,  no  brother  near  the  throne, 
View  him  with  scornful,  yet  with  jealous  eyes, 
And  hate  for  arts  that  caused  himself  to  rise ; 
Damn  with  faint  praise,  assent  with  civil  leer, 
And,  without  sneering,  teach  the  rest  to  sneer ; 
Willing  to  wound,  and  yet  afraid  to  strike, 
Just  hint  a  fault,  and  hesitate  dislike ; 


AN  UGLY  SUBJECT  287 

Alike  reserved  to  blame  or  to  commend, 
A  timorous  foe  and  a  suspicious  friend. 

It  does  not  matter  who  was  intended  by  such  piercing 
lines  as  these;  every  one  feels  in  reading  them  that  they  are 
unimpeachably  true,  atrociously  and  mercilessly  true,  of  a 
certain  type  of  human  nature  that  is  as  old  as  the  history 
of  civilization.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  art 'of 
drawing  so  true  a  picture  in  a  dozen  lines  should  still  be 
praised;  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  certain  lines  have 
become  household  words  and  English  idioms — for  instance, 
the  lines  about  damning  with  faint  praise  and  about  mak- 
ing other  people  sneer,  without  sneering  yourself. 

I  think  we  can  say  that  the  artistic  question  is  partly 
solved  by  such  a  quotation.  If  hatred  gives  new  eyes  to  a 
man  and  enables  him  to  see  more  general  truth  in  a  power- 
ful way,  the  literature  of  hatred  may  be  worthy  of  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  admiration.  But  I  should  certainly  think  that 
to  shrink  from  all  such  literature  is  a  proof  of  a  generous 
mind. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART 

Last  year  I  gave  a  short  lecture  in  regard  to  a  new  theory 
of  art,  suggesting  that  the  highest  form  of  any  kind  of  art 
ought  to  have  the  effect  of  exciting  a  noble  enthusiasm  and 
a  sincere  desire  of  self-sacrifice.  I  compared  the  ideal  ef- 
fect of  such  an  art  with  the  emotional  effect  of  first  love  upon 
a  generous  mind,  observing  that  the  real  influence  of  a  gen- 
erous passion  is  intensely  moral,  that  it  creates  a  desire  to 
sacrifice  self.  But.  at  that  time  I  had  not  read  Tolstoi's 
famous  essay  upon  the  very  same  subject.  That  essay  re- 
enforces  a  great  many  truths  that  I  have  tried  to  dwell  upon 
in  other  lectures;  and  no  book  of  the  present  time  has  ex- 
cited so  much  furious  discussion.  So  I  think  that  it  is  quite 
important  enough  to  talk  about  today.  As  university  stu- 
dents it  is  necessary  that  you  should  be  fully  acquainted 
with  what  is  going  on  in  the  literary  world;  and  the  ap- 
pearance of  Tolstoi's  book  (it  first  appeared  only  in  the 
form  of  magazine  essays)  is  a  very  great  literary  event.  It 
is  entitled  in  the  French  version,  "Qu'est  ce  que  VArt?" 

Before  going  any  further,  I  must  warn  you  not  to  allow 
yourselves  to  be  prejudiced  against  the  theory  by  anything 
in  the  way  of  criticism  made  upon  it.  One  of  the  most 
important  things  for  a  literary  student  to  learn  is  not  to 
allow  his  judgment  to  be  formed  by  other  people's  opinions. 
I  have  to  lecture  to  you  hoping  that  you  will  keep  to  this 
rule  even  in  regard  to  my  own  opinion.  Do  not  think  that 
something  is  good  or  bad,  merely  because  I  say  so,  but  try 
to  find  out  for  yourself  by  unprejudiced  reading  and  think- 
ing whether  I  am  right  or  wrong.  In  the  case  of  Tolstoi, 
the  criticisms  have  been  so  fierce  and  in  some  respects  so 
well  founded,  that  even  I  hesitated  for  a  moment  to  buy 

288 


TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART  289 

the  book.     But  I  suspected  very  soon  that  any  book  cap- 
able of  making  half  the  world  angry  on  the  subject  of 
art  must  be  a  book  of  great  power.     Indeed,  it  is  rather  a 
good  sign  that  a  man  is  worth  something,  when  thousands 
of  people  abuse  him  simply  for  his  opinions.     And  now, 
having  read  the  book,  I  find  that  I  was  quite  right  in  my 
reflections.     It  is  a  very  great  book,  but  you  must  be  pre- 
pared for  startling  errors  in  it,  extraordinary  misjudgments, 
things   that  really  deserve  harsh   criticism.     Many  great 
thinkers  are  as  weak  in  some  one  direction  as  they  happen 
to  be  strong  in  another.     Ruskin,  who  could  not  really  un- 
derstand Greek  art,  and  who  resembled  Tolstoi  in  many 
ways,  was  a  man  of  this  kind,  inclined  to  abuse  what  he 
did  not  understand,  Japanese  art  not  less  than  Greek  art. 
About  Greek  art  one  of  his  judgments  clearly  proves  the 
limitation  of  his  faculty.     He  said  that  the  Venus  de  Medici 
was  a  very  uninteresting  little  person.     Tolstoi  has  said 
more  extraordinary  things  than  that;  he  has  no  liking  for 
Shakespeare,  for  Dante,  for  other  men  whose  fame  has  been 
established  for  centuries.     He  denies  at  once  whole  schools 
of  literature,  whole  schools  of  painting  and  whole  schools 
of  music.     If  the  wrong  things  which  he  has  said  were 
picked  out  of  his  book  and  printed  on  a  page  all  by  them- 
selves (this  has  been  done  by  some  critics),  you  would  think 
after  reading  that  page  that  Tolstoi  had  become  suddenly 
insane.     But  you  must  not  mind  these  blemishes.     Cer- 
tain giants  must  never  be  judged  by  their  errors,  but  only 
by  their  strength,  and  in  spite  of  all  faults  the  book  is  a 
book  which  will  make  anybody  think  in  a  new  and  generous 
way.     Moreover,   it  is  utterly  sincere  and  unselfish — the 
author  denouncing  even  his  own  work,  the  wonderful  books 
of  his  youth,  which  won  for  him  the  very  highest  place 
among  modern  novelists.     These,  he  now  tells  us,  are  not 
works  of  art. 

There  is  a  qualification  to  be  made  in  regard  to  all  this. 
Tolstoi  does  not  deny  that  most  art  that  he  condemns  is  art 


290  TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART 

in  a  narrow  sense;  he  means  that  it  is  not  good  art,  not  the 
best,  and  therefore  ought  not  to  be  praised.  This  being 
understood,  I  can  better  begin  to  explain  his  doctrine. 

The  first  position  which  he  takes  is  about  as  follows:  A 
great  deal  of  what  has  been  called  great  art  can  not  be  un- 
derstood except  by  educated  people.  You  must  be  edu- 
cated and  refined  in  a  considerable  degree,  in  order  to  un- 
derstand the  beauty  of  a  Greek  gem  or  statue,  an  elaborate 
piece  of  music,  or  a  supreme  piece  of  modern  poetry.  You 
must  be  trained  to  understand  the  beauty  of  what  modern 
society  calls  beautiful.  Take  a  peasant  from  the  people, 
and  show  to  him  a  great  painting,  or  repeat  to  him  a  great 
poem,  or  make  him  listen  to  a  grand  piece  of  harmonized 
music;  and  then  ask  him  what  he  thinks  of  these  things. 
As  a  sincere  man,  he  will  tell  you  that  he  prefers  to  look  at 
the  picture  in  his  village  church,  to  hear  the  songs  of  beggar- 
minstrels,  or  to  listen  to  a  piece  of  dance  music.  This  is 
unquestionable  fact;  nobody  can  deny  it. 

But  the  substance  of  a  nation  in  any  country,  the  mass 
of  its  humanity,  is  not  cultured,  is  not  rich,  is  not  refined; 
it  consists  of  peasants  and  workers,  not  of  fine  ladies  and 
gentlemen.  The  cultivated  class  must  always  be  small; 
the  majority  of  a  nation  must  always  remain  workers.  And 
according  to  the  common  acceptation  and  practice  of  art, 
art  is  something  which  only  the  highly  educated  and  wealthy 
can  be  made  to  understand  and  to  enjoy.  Therefore  art 
is  something  with  which  nine-tenths  at  least,  of  the  human 
race,  can  have  nothing  to  do ! 

Yet  what  of  the  alleged  inferiority  of  the  masses'?  Are 
they  really  inferior  beings,  are  they  unsusceptible  to  the 
highest  and  best  emotions'?  What  are  these  highest  and 
best  emotions  that  artists  talk  so  much  about  ?  Are  they 
not  loyalty,  love,  duty,  resignation,  patience,  courage — 
everything  that  means  the  strength  of  the  race  and  the 
goodness  of  it4?  Has  the  peasant  no  loyalty,  no  love,  no 
courage,  no  patience,  no  patriotism?     Or,  rather  is  it  not 


TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART  291 

the  peasant  who  is  most  willing  to  give  his  life  for  his 
emperor  and  his  country,  to  sacrifice  himself  for  the  sake 
of  others,  to  do  in  time  of  danger  the  greatest  deeds  of 
heroism,  to  sacrifice  himself  in  time  of  peace  for  the  sake 
of  others;  to  obey  under  all  circumstances'?  Is  it  not  the 
peasant  really  who  loves  most?  Who  is  the  best  of  hus- 
bands and  fathers?  Who,  in  all  that  makes  religion  worth 
having,  is  the  most  devout  of  believers?  Tell  the  real 
truth,  and  acknowledge  that  the  peasant  is  morally  a  bet- 
ter man  than  the  average  of  the  noble  and  wealthy.  He  is 
emotionally  better,  and  he  is  better  in  the  strength  of  his 
character.  Where  do  we  find  what  is  called  human  good- 
ness? Where  are  we  to  go  to  look  for  everyday  examples 
of  every  virtue?  Is  it  around  the  wealthy  people  of  cities, 
or  is  it  among  the  people  of  the  country,  the  people  who  can- 
not understand  art?  There  is  only  one  answer  to  this 
question,  and  it  is  the  same  answer  that  Ruskin  made  a 
long  time  ago.  The  poor  are  as  a  whole  the  best  people. 
If  you  want  to  look  for  holiness  in  the  sense  of  human 
goodness,  you  must  look  for  it  among  the  poor.  Every- 
thing noble  in  the  emotional  life  is  there.  The  evil  devices 
and  follies  of  a  few  do  not  signify;  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  are  good. 

Well,  the  great  mass  of  the  people  have  nothing  to  do 
with  art,  though  they  are  good.  But  what  is  art?  It  is 
the  power  to  convey  emotion  by  means  of  words,  music, 
colour  or  form ;  it  is  the  means  of  making  people  feel  truth 
and  beauty  through  their  senses.  And  the  common  peo- 
ple cannot  understand  art!  Then  must  we  suppose  that 
they  have  no  sense  of  truth  and  beauty?  Have  we  not 
already  been  obliged  to  recognize  that  the  best  of  human 
emotion  belongs  to  them?  And  if  the  mass  of  the  people 
really  possess  every  noble  emotion,  and  if  our  so-called 
art  cannot  touch  their  hearts  and  their  minds,  where  is  the 
fault?     It  cannot  be  in  the  people;  it  must  be  in  the  art. 

This  leads  to  another  question — is  it  really  true  that  what 


292  TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART 

we  have  been  calling  great  art  appeals  to  the  best  emo- 
tions of  mankind4?  It  cannot  be  true,  Tolstoi  boldly  an- 
swers. If  it  were  true,  then  the  people  would  be  touched 
by  it.  They  are  not  touched  by  it;  they  do  not  understand 
it;  they  do  not  like  it.  That  is  proof  positive  that  it  does 
not  appeal  to  noble  emotions.  Then  what  does  it  appeal 
to*?  At  this  point  of  the  essay  Tolstoi's  criticism  is  most 
telling  and  most  terrible,  though  weakened  by  occasional 
mistakes.  What  we  have  been  calling  art,  he  says,  appeals 
to  sensualism  and  lust;  but  the  peasant  is  chaste.  He  does 
not  care  for  pictures  of  naked  women,  nor  statues  of  nudity 
in  any  form;  neither  does  he  care  for  stories  or  poems  sug- 
gesting sensuality.  Sensualism  is  really  weakness;  the  per- 
fectly strong  man  cannot  be  a  sensualist — his  life  is  too 
normal  and  too  natural;  if  you  like,  he  is  too  good  an  ani- 
mal to  be  unchaste.  Most  animals  are  chaste.  But  West- 
ern art,  Greek  art,  Italian  art,  French  art,  has  been  through 
all  these  centuries  unchaste,  appealing  only  to  the  sex-in- 
stincts of  the  beholder.  There  are  exceptions,  no  doubt, 
but  in  this  way  of  considering  the  meaning  of  art  we  must 
consider  the  dominant  tone.  I  am  afraid  that  Tolstoi  is 
quite  right  about  that.  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  can 
controvert  him. 

Next,  let  us  take  literature.  The  peasant  cannot  under- 
stand fine  literature;  it  makes  no  appeal  to  him.  He  has 
a  very  simple  literature  of  his  own,  full  of  beauty — touch- 
ing songs  and  touching  stories  about  human  virtue,  and  our 
best  critics  acknowledge  that  any  poet  can  obtain  the  best 
and  truest  inspiration  from  the  literature  of  despised  peas- 
ants. You  cannot  say  that  the  peasant  is  incapable  of  feel- 
ing literary  emotions — on  the  contrary,  he  can  give  it,  he 
can  teach  it;  in  England  he  taught  it  to  every  English 
poet  since  the  time  of  Walter  Scott,  and  to  many  before 
that  time.  The  very  greatest  of  Scotch  singers  was  a  poor 
farmer.  So  we  must  acknowledge  that  a  peasant  is  no 
stranger  to  the  highest  form  of  literary  emotion.     But  our 


TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART  293 

line  literature,  our  literature  of  educated  men,  can  not  inter- 
est him  at  all.  Therefore,  the  fault  must  be  in  the  art,  not 
in  the  peasant.  So  let  us  consider  what  is  the  nature  of 
those  noble  emotions  which  our  highest  literary  art  is  sup- 
posed to  express  and  to  teach. 

Here  again  we  have  Tolstoi's  terrible  criticism.  Our 
greatest  plays  are  plays  on  the  subject  of  crime,  murder, 
lust,  adultery,  treachery,  everything  horrible  in  human  na- 
ture. Our  novels,  for  the  great  majority,  are  stories  of 
social  life  written  with  a  view  to  keeping  the  sexual  feel- 
ings of  the  reader  slightly  excited.  Our  poems  have  been 
for  hundreds  of  years,  a  great  majority  of  them,  about 
sexual  love,  or  about  a  foolish  passion  of  some  kind.  I  am 
only  expressing  Tolstoi's  view  very  briefly;  it  would  sur- 
prise you  to  discover  how  he  masses  great  names  together 
in  this  condemnation,  and  how  very  right  he  seems  to  me 
to  be  in  spite  of  it;  and  then  he  tells  us,  "You  never  can 
appeal  to  the  honest  mass  of  people,  you  never  can  touch 
their  hearts,  with  stories  of  lust  and  crime  and  luxury. 
They  are  too  good  to  find  pleasure  in  such  things." 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  his  arraignment  of  modern  music 
and  other  branches  of  art,  because  the  above  illustrations  are 
strong  enough.  His  conclusion  is  this:  "If  art  be  the 
means  of  expressing  and  conveying  emotion,  then  the  noblest 
art  must  be  that  which  expresses  and  conveys  the  noblest 
form  of  emotion.  Now  the  noblest  emotions  are  emotions 
shared  by  all  men ;  and  true  art  should  be  able  to  appeal  to 
all  men,  not  to  a  class  only.  The  proof  that  modern  art  is 
not  great  art,  the  proof  that  it  is  even  bad  art,  is  that  the 
common  people  cannot  understand  it." 

We  now  come  face  to  face  with  two  serious  objections. 

First,  you  may  say  that  the  reason  common  people  can 
not  understand  great  art  is  simply  this,  that  they  are  stupid 
and  ignorant.  How  can  they  comprehend  a  great  work  of 
literature  when  they  can  not  understand  the  language  of 
literature"?     They  can  read  only  very  simple  things;  to  read 


294  TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART 

a  great  poem  or  a  great  work  of  fiction  requires  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  language  of  the  educated.  Common  people,  not 
being  educated,  of  course  cannot  understand. 

Very  bravely  does  Tolstoi  face  this  objection.  He  an- 
swers that  the  so-called  language  of  the  educated  ought  not 
to  be  used  in  a  great  work  of  art.  A  great  work  ought  to 
be  written  in  the  language  of  the  people,  which  is  really 
the  language  of  the  country  and  of  the  nation,  whereas  the 
language  of  the  educated  is  a  special  artificial  thing,  like 
the  language  of  medicine,  the  language  of  botany,  or  the 
language  of  any  special  science.  And  he  tells  us  that  he 
thinks  it  selfish  and  wicked  and  unreasonable  to  make  litera- 
ture inaccessible  to  the  people  by  writing  it  in  a  special 
idiom  which  the  people  can  not  understand.  Moreover,  he 
says  that  the  greatest  books  of  the  world  have  never  been 
written  in  a  special  literary  language,  but  in  the  common 
language  of  the  common  people.  To  illustrate  this  he 
quotes  the  great  religious  books  and  great  religious  poems, 
the  Bible  and  the  books  of  Buddhism  which,  in  the  time 
of  their  composition,  must  have  been  produced  in  the  living 
tongue,  not  in  a  special  language.  What  reason  can  pos- 
sibly be  offered  except  a  reason  of  prejudice  for  making 
literature  incomprehensible  to  the  masses?  It  is  no  use  to 
say  that  with  common  language  you  can  not  express  the 
same  ideas  which  you  are  in  the  habit  of  expressing  through 
literary  language.  If  you  think  you  can  not  utter  great 
thoughts  in  simple  speech,  that  is  because  of  bad  training, 
bad  habits,  false  education.  The  greatest  thoughts  and  the 
deepest  ever  uttered,  have  been  written  in  religious  books 
and  in  the  language  of  the  people.  In  short,  Tolstoi's  posi- 
tion is  that  the  whole  system  of  literary  education  is  wrong 
from  top  to  bottom.  And  this  statement  is  worth  thinking 
about. 

Let  me  give  you  a  quotation,  showing  his  views  about  the 
incomprehensibility  of  art: 

"To  say  that  a  work  of  art  is  good,  and  that  it  is  never- 


TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART  295 

theless  incomprehensible  to  the  majority  of  men,  is  just  as 
if  one  were  to  say  of  a  certain  kind  of  food  that  it  is  good, 
but  that  the  majority  of  mankind  ought  to  be  careful  not 
to  eat  it.  The  majority  of  men,  doubtless,  may  not  like  to 
eat  rotten  cheese  or  what  is  called  in  England  'high'  game — 
that  is,  the  flesh  of  game  which  has  been  allowed  to  become 
a  little  putrid — meat  much  esteemed  by  men  of  perverted 
taste;  but  bread  and  fruits  are  only  good  when  they  please 
the  taste  of  the  majority  of  mankind.  And  in  the  case  of 
art  it  is  just  the  same  thing.  Perverted  art  cannot  please 
the  majority  of  mankind;  but  good  art  should  of  necessity 
be  something  capable  of  pleasing  everybody." 

Now  let  me  give  you  an  interesting  quotation  which  illus- 
trates the  degree  to  which  what  is  now  called  great  art 
seems  unnatural  to  common  people: 

"Among  people  who  have  not  yet  become  perverted  by 
the  false  theories  of  our  modern  society,  among  artisans  and 
among  children,  for  example,  nature  has  created  a  very 
clear  idea  of  what  deserves  to  be  blamed  or  to  be  praised. 
According  to  the  instincts  of  the  common  people  and  of 
children,  praise  rightly  belongs  only  to  great  physical  force" 
— as  in  the  case  of  Hercules,  of  heroes,  of  conquerors — "or 
else  to  moral  force" — as  in  the  case  of  Sakya-Muni,  re- 
nouncing beauty  and  power  for  the  sake  of  saving  man,  or 
the  case  of  Christ  dying  upon  the  Cross  for  our  benefit,  or 
as  in  the  case  of  the  saints  and  the  martyrs.  These  ideas 
are  ideas  of  the  most  perfect  kind.  Simple  and  frankly 
honest  souls  understand  very  well  that  it  is  impossible  not 
to  respect  physical  force,  because  physical  force  is  a  thing 
that  of  itself  compels  respect;  and  they  also  can  not  help 
equally  respecting  moral  force — the  moral  strength  of  the 
man  who  works  for  the  sake  of  good;  they  feel  themselves 
attracted  toward  the  beauty  of  moral  force  by  their  whole 
inner  nature.  "These  simple  minds  perceive  that  there  actu- 
ally exist  in  this  world  men  who  are  more  respected  than 
the  men  respected  for  physical  or  moral  force — they  perceive 


296  TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART 

that  there  are  men  more  respected,  more  admired,  and  better 
rewarded  than  all  the  heroes  of  strength  or  of  moral  good, 
and  this  merely  because  they  know  how  to  sing,  how  to 
dance,  or  how  to  write  poems.  A  peasant  can  understand 
that  Alexander  the  Great  or  Genghis  Khan  or  Napoleon 
were  really  great  men;  he  understands  that  because  he  knows 
that  any  one  of  them  would  have  been  able  to  annihilate 
him  and  thousands  of  his  followers.  He  can  also  under- 
stand that  Buddha,  Socrates,  and  Christ  were  great  men, 
because  he  feels  and  knows  that  he  himself  and  all  other 
men  ought  to  try  to  be  like  them.  But  how  is  it  that  a  man 
can  be  called  great  merely  for  having  written  poems  about 
the  love  of  woman1?  That  is  a  thing  which,  by  no  manner 
of  means,  could  he  ever  be  made  to  understand." 

Elsewhere  he  gives  a  still  more  amusing  illustration. 
The  common  people,  he  says,  are  accustomed  to  look  at 
statues  of  divinities,  angels,  saints,  gods,  or  heroes.  They 
understand  quite  well  the  reason  for  such  images.  But 
when  they  hear  that  a  statue  has  been  set  up  to  honour  a 
man  like  Baudelaire,  who  wrote  poems  of  lust  or  despair, 
or  when  they  hear  of  a  statue  set  up  in  memory  of  a  man 
who  knew  how  to  play  the  fiddle,  that  appears  to  them 
utterly  monstrous.     And  perhaps  it  is. 

I  have  thought  of  a  second  strong  objection  to  Tolstoi's 
position,  an  objection  which  he  himself  has  not  dwelt  on — 
a  philosophical  objection.  It  is  customary  now-a-days  to 
consider  superior  intelligence  as  connected  with  a  superior 
nervous  system.  Many  persons,  I  am  sure,  would  be  ready 
to  say  that  the  common  people  cannot  understand  high  art, 
because  of  the  inferiority  of  their  nervous  system.  Com- 
pared with  educated  and  wealthy  people,  they  are  supposed 
to  be  dull,  therefore  incapable  of  feeling  beauty.  They 
live,  in  Europe  at  least,  among  miserable  conditions  of  dirt 
and  bad  smells.  How  could  they  appreciate  the  delicate 
fine  art  of  civilization?  I  say  that  many  persons  would 
argue  in  this  way,  but  no  clear  thinker  would  do  so.     As 


TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART  297 

a  matter  of  fact,  in  modern  Europe  the  best  thinkers,  the 
best  artists,  the  best  scholars,  really  come  from  the  peasant 
class.  Some  farmers  have  been  able  with  the  greatest  dif- 
ficulty to  give  their  children  a  better  education  than  the 
average.  Even  in  the  great  English  universities  some  of 
the  highest  honours  have  been  taken  by  men  of  this  kind, 
proving  as  Spencer  said  long  ago  that  the  foundation  of  a 
strong  mind  is  a  strong  body.  I  know  what  Tolstoi  would 
say  about  the  aesthetic  refinement  of  the  nervous  system. 
He  would  simply  say  that  what  is  called  exquisite  nervous 
sensibility  is  nothing  more  than  hyper-aesthesia — that  is, 
a  diseased  condition  of  the  nerves.  But  leaving  this  matter 
aside,  let  me  seriously  ask  a  question.  Is  a  common  peasant 
of  the  poorest  class  really  insensible  to  beauty1?  Or  what 
kind  of  beauty  shall  we  take  for  a  test?  The  European 
standard  of  art  holds  the  perception  of  human  beauty  to 
be  the  highest  test-mark  of  aesthetic  ability.  Is  the  common 
man,  the  most  common  and  ignorant  man  of  the  people, 
insensible  to  human  beauty1?  Is  he  less  capable,  for  ex- 
ample, of  judging  the  beauty  of  woman  than  the  most 
accomplished  of  artists'?  Now  I  do  not  know  what  you  will 
think  of  my  statement;  but  I  do  not  hesitate  for  a  moment 
to  say  that  the  best  judge  of  beauty  in  the  world  is  the 
common  man  of  the  people.  I  do  not  mean  that  every  man 
of  that  class  is  better  than  others;  but  I  mean  that  the 
quickest  and  best  judges  of  either  a  man  or  a  woman  are 
the  very  same  persons  who  are  the  quickest  and  best  judges 
of  a  horse  or  a  cow. 

For  after  all,  what  we  call  beauty  or  grace  in  the  best 
and  deepest  sense,  represents  physical  force,  with  which  the 
peasant  is  much  better  acquainted  than  we  are.  He  is 
accustomed  to  observing  life,  and  he  does  it  instinctively. 
Beauty  means  a  certain  proportion  in  the  skeleton  which 
gives  the  best  results  of  strength  and  of  easy  motion  in  the 
animal  or  the  man.  Suppose  again  that  we  consider  the 
body  apart  from  beauty;  what  does  it  mean*?     It  means  the 


S98  TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART 

economy  of  force;  that  is,  a  body  should  be  so  made  that 
the  greatest  possible  amount  of  strength  and  activity  is 
obtained  with  the  least  possible  amount  of  substance.  To 
say  that  a  man  accustomed  to  judge  an  animal  cannot  judge 
a  human  being  is  utter  nonsense.  Such  a  man,  in  fact,  is 
the  best  of  all  judges,  and  seldom  makes  a  mistake.  Now 
history  of  course  has  curious  instances  of  the  recognition  of 
this  fact  by  great  princes.  In  the  time  of  the  greatest  lux- 
ury of  the  Caliphs  of  Bagdad,  when  the  Prince  wished  to 
find  a  perfectly  beautiful  woman  to  be  his  companion,  he 
did  not  invariably  go  to  the  governors  of  provinces  or  to 
the  houses  of  the  nobility  in  search  of  such  a  woman.  He 
went  to  the  wild  Arabs  of  the  desert,  to  the  breeders  of 
horses,  and  asked  them  to  find  the  girl  for  him.  A  memora- 
ble example  is  that  of  Abdul  Malik,  the  fifth  Caliph  of  the 
house  of  Ommayad;  he  asked  a  common  horse  trader  how 
to  choose  a  beautiful  woman,  and  the  man  at  once  answered 
him,  "You  must  choose  a  woman  whose  feet  are  of  such  a 
form,  etc." — naming  and  describing  every  part  of  the  body 
and  its  best  points  exactly  as  a  horse-trader  would  describe 
the  best  points  of  a  horse.  The  Caliph  was  astonished  to 
discover  that  this  rude  man  knew  incomparably  more 
about  womanly  beauty  than  all  his  courtiers  and  his  artists. 
The  fact  is  that  familiarity  with  life,  with  active  life,  gives 
the  best  of  all  knowledge  in  the  matter  of  beauty  and 
strength.  Once  in  America  I  had  a  curious  illustration  of 
what  such  familiarity  can  accomplish  in  another  way.  At 
a  certain  meeting  of  men  from  many  parts  of  the  country, 
there  came  into  the  assembly  a  common  man  of  the  poorest 
class  who  could  tell  the  exact  weight  of  any  one  in  the 
assembly.  You  must  remember  that  every  man  was  fully 
dressed.  All  agreed  to  pay  him  something  for  proof  of  his 
skill,  for  it  is  very  difficult  to  tell  the  weight  and  strength 
of  a  man  in  Western  clothes.  Well,  the  man  took  a  little 
box,  put  it  on  the  ground,  and  asked  each  person  present 
to  step  over  it.     As  each  person  stepped,  he  cried  out  the 


TOLSTOI'S  THEORY  OF  ART  299 

weight;  and  the  weight  was  almost  exactly  as  announced 
in  every  case.  Afterwards  I  asked  him  how  he  did  this 
extraordinary  thing.  He  answered,  "When  you  lift  your 
leg  to  step  over  the  box,  I  can  see  the  size  and  the  line  of 
the  front  muscle  of  the  thigh,  and  from  that  I  can  tell  any 
man's  weight."  There  is  a  good  example  of  what  natural 
observation  means. 

But  to  return,  in  conclusion,  to  the  subject  of  this  essay. 
I  think  it  will  give  you  something  to  think  about;  and 
certainly  it  confirms  the  truth  of  one  thing  which  I  have 
often  asserted,  that  the  sooner  Japanese  authors  will  resign 
themselves  to  write  in  the  spoken  language  of  the  people, 
the  better  for  Japanese  literature  and  for  the  general  dis- 
semination of  modern  knowledge.  I  think  {his  book  is  a 
very  great  and  noble  book;  I  also  think  that  it  is  funda- 
mentally true  from  beginning  to  end.  There  are  mistakes 
in  it — as,  for  instance,  when  Tolstoi  speaks  of  Kipling  as 
an  essentially  obscure  writer,  incomprehensible  to  the  peo- 
ple. But  Kipling  happens  to  be  just  the  man  who  speaks 
to  the  people.  He  uses  their  vernacular.  Such  little  mis- 
takes, due  to  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  a  foreign  people, 
do  not  in  the  least  affect  the  value  of  the  moral  in  this 
teaching.  But  the  reforms  advised  are  at  present,  of  course, 
impossible.  Although  I  believe  Tolstoi  is  perfectly  right, 
I  could  not  lecture  to  you — I  could  not  fulfil  my  duties  in 
this  university — by  strictly  observing  his  principles.  Were 
I  to  do  that,  I  should  be  obliged  to  tell  you  that  hundreds 
of  books  famous  in  English  literature  are  essentially  bad 
books,  and  that  you  ought  not  to  read  them  at  all ;  whereas 
I  am  engaged  for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out  to  you  the 
literary  merits  of  those  very  books. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
NOTE  UPON  TOLSTOI'S  "RESURRECTION" 

Before  commencing  another  lecture  on  texts  of  any  kind, 
we  may  relieve  the  monotony  by  a  little  talk  about  a  won- 
derful book  which  all  the  world  is  talking  about  at  the 
present  time.  Besides  giving  you  special  lectures  on  in- 
dividual authors,  I  believe  that  it  is  also  the  lecturer's  duty 
to  talk  to  you  occasionally  about  the  great  literary  events 
of  our  own  day — at  least  about  such  of  them  as  appear  to 
have  any  important  moral  or  social  signification.  It  is  well 
that  you  should  accustom  yourselves  during  your  university 
career  to  watch  such  literary  events,  and  to  make  fairly 
correct  estimates  and  judgments  in  regard  to  them,  remem- 
bering that  the  thought  of  the  future  is  made  by  the  events 
of  the  present — in  literary  circles,  at  least. 

In  a  preceding  lecture  on  a  book  by  Meredith,  I  insisted 
at  some  length  upon  the  difficulty  to  be  faced  by  every 
reformer — one  might  have  added,  by  any  man  with  a  novel 
idea.  Men  of  new  ideas  usually  get  into  trouble.  It  is 
also  possible  to  get  into  trouble  by  returning  to  ideas  which 
are  very  old,  but  which  being  true,  may  be  in  antagonism 
to  the  notions  of  the  time  or  to  the  existing  tendencies  in 
society.  Count  Tolstoi  is  an  example  of  the  latter  fact. 
I  spoke  of  him  in  a  former  lecture,  regarding  his  great  power 
as  a  novelist,  but  I  was  then  referring  to  the  work  of  his 
youth  particularly.  I  want  now  to  speak  of  the  work  of 
his  old  age.  You  will  do  well  to  remember  that  next  to 
Turgueniev,  he  represents  the  highest  literary  art  of  Russia; 
and  I  am  not  sure  but  that  he  will  eventually  be  judged 
even  greater  than  Turgueniev.  And  speaking  of  Russian 
prose  literature,  remember  that  although  small  in  quantity, 
its  quality  has  not  been  surpassed  by  any  other  literature, 

300 


TOLSTOI'S  "RESURRECTION"  301 

not  even  by  the  French.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the 
Russian  writers  are  masters  of  form  as  the  French  are;  they 
cannot  be  that.  But  in  the  art  of  picturing  human  life, 
so  as  to  bestir  the  best  emotions  of  the  reader,  they  really 
stand  almost  alone. 

In  his  later  years  you  know  that  the  Count  became  very 
religious  in  his  own  way.  He  made  a  sort  of  Christianity 
of  his  own — a  poetical  kind  of  Christianity,  which  consisted 
in  applying  the  teachings  of  Christ  to  the  conduct  of  actual 
life.  Perhaps  you  have  read  or  heard  that  there  are  now  in 
Russia  a  great  many  strange  sects  of  Christians,  who  are 
giving  the  Government  more  trouble  than  the  English  and 
American  Quakers  gave  to  their  respective  governments  in 
former  centuries.  You  know  what  the  Russian  govern- 
ment is,  and  you  know  what  it  means  there  for  a  man  to 
say,  I  am  an  anti-militarist.  But  there  are  thousands  of 
men  who  persist  in  saying  that  to  their  government  in  Russia, 
year  after  year,  and  welcoming  the  punishment  which  fol- 
lows. They  believe  that  it  is  not  Christian  to  declare  war, 
to  destroy  life,  and  to  wound  others.  And  really  the  gov- 
ernment can  not  do  anything  with  these  men  except  to 
punish  them.  Thousands  have  been  driven  out  of  the  coun- 
try, but  the  number  of  sects  continues  to  grow.  This  will 
give  you  an  idea,  but  only  a  very  small  idea,  regarding  the 
new  kind  of  Christianity  existing  in  Russia.  The  brave 
author  I  am  speaking  of  does  not  belong  to  the  particular 
sects  mentioned,  though  he  has  sympathy  with  them.  He 
is  a  sect  in  himself.  He  has  given  away  all  his  property 
to  help  the  peasants  who  were  formerly  slaves  upon  his 
father's  estate,  and  he  has  even  written  books  of  late  years 
in  order  to  devote  the  money  obtained  from  their  sale  to 
charitable  purposes.  When  he  first  began  to  abandon  liter- 
ature, many  years  ago,  the  great  Turgueniev  wrote  to  him 
and  begged  him,  for  the  sake  of  Russian  literature,  to  go 
back  to  fiction.  For  he  has  this  one  faculty  to  a  greater 
extent  than  Turgueniev  had,  than  almost  any  modern  writer 


302  TOLSTOI'S  "RESURRECTION" 

had — the  dramatic  faculty,  the  power  to  make  hundreds 
of  different  characters  really  think  and  move  and  speak  in 
the  pages  of  a  book.  But  he  did  not  give  any  heed  to  this 
generous  advice  at  the  time.  Afterwards  he  wrote  chiefly 
little  short  stories  intended  to  illustrate  moral  facts.  But 
now  he  has  certainly  returned  to  fiction,  because  he  dis- 
covered that  he  had  something  new  to  say;  and  the  result 
is  really  very  astonishing.  I  should  not  declare  that  his  last 
book  is  a  greater  piece  of  literary  work  than  the  novels  of 
his  young  days;  I  should  simply  say  that  it  is  one  of  the 
most  terrible  and  touching  books  ever  written.  Nothing 
else  at  all  resembling  it  appeared  during  the  century.  In 
one  sense  you  may  call  it  a  religious  novel,  but  actually  it 
is  not  a  religious  novel  at  all  in  relation  to  dogma  or  doctrine 
of  any  kind.  It  is  simply  the  story  of  the  influence  of 
generous  ideas  upon  the  mind  of  a  man  who  has  done  some- 
thing wrong.  The  word  "religious"  concerns  it  only  in  the 
sense  that  moral  feeling  is  religion.  The  result  of  writing 
that  book  is  that  Count  Tolstoi  has  been  excommunicated 
by  the  Orthodox  Church  as  a  blasphemer  and  an  infidel, 
as  one  who  is  not  to  be  allowed  the  privilege  of  religious 
believers  after  his  death,  and  as  one  for  whose  soul  men 
are  hereafter  forbidden  to  pray.  You  will  see  that  in 
Russia,  at  least,  literature  is  not  by  any  means  free  from 
religious  interference  as  well  as  secular  censorship.  But 
really  the  offence  of  Count  Tolstoi's  book  only  happens  to 
be  that  it  is  more  Christian  than  Christianity.  To  try  to 
improve  a  religious  conception  may  be  quite  as  dangerous 
socially  as  to  attack  it. 

What  is  the  subject  of  the  novel?  A  young  Russian 
nobleman,  while  still  a  university  student,  thoughtlessly 
seduces  a  servant  girl  in  the  house  of  his  mother.  He  gives 
her  a  child.  Afterwards  he  thinks  that,  as  he  is  a  noble- 
man, it  is  quite  sufficient  compensation  for  him  to  give  her 
a  present  of  one  hundred  rubles.  Then  he  loses  sight  of 
her  for  a  number  of  years,  during  which  time  he  enjoys  all 


TOLSTOI'S  "RESURRECTION"  303 

the  pleasures  of  life  as  much  as  possible  and  becomes  as 
selfish  and  as  hard  as  any  other  man  of  the  world.  Later 
on  he  is  summoned  one  day  to  the  criminal  court  as  a  jury- 
man in  order  to  decide  upon  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  a 
prostitute  who  has  been  accused  of  murdering  a  man,  or 
at  least  of  poisoning  him,  for  purposes  of  robbery.  The 
woman  is  very  beautiful ;  and  her  face  immediately  attracts 
the  young  nobleman's  attention.  Then  what  is  his  surprise 
to  find  that  this  is  the  same  girl  whom  he  had  seduced  years 
before  in  his  mother's  house.  It  was  his  fault  that  instead 
of  becoming  a  happy  wife  she  had  become  what  he  now  saw 
before  him.  The  accusation  brought  against  her  happened 
to  be  false,  and  he  knows  from  positive  evidence  that  it  is  a 
false  charge,  but  the  machinery  of  the  Russian  criminal 
court  is  still  very  imperfect,  and  he  cannot  obtain  the  acquit- 
tal of  the  woman.  Although  she  is  innocent,  she  is  sen- 
tenced to  Siberia. 

Then  as  he  heard  the  sentence  he  began  to  understand 
what  the  result  of  his  own  moral  injustice  to  the  girl  had 
been — the  total  ruin  of  a  life,  the  destruction  of  body  and 
soul.  And  why  had  he  done  this6?  For  mere  selfish  pleas- 
ure.    Can  he  possibly  atone  for  the  wrong'? 

In  one  way  he  can  partly  atone  to  her.  His  moral  duty 
now  is,  notwithstanding  that  he  is  a  high  nobleman  and 
that  she  has  become  a  public  prostitute,  convicted  of  mur- 
der— it  is  now  his  duty,  he  thinks,  to  go  with  her  to  Siberia, 
and  to  marry  her,  and  to  devote  the  rest  of  his  life  to  the 
work  of  trying  to  make  her  a  good  woman. 

Perhaps  the  element  of  the  improbable  will  seem  to  some 
of  you  who  have  not  read  the  book,  to  obtrude  itself  in  this 
relation.  Is  it  not  a  little  absurd  to  imagine  a  nobleman 
thus  willing  to  disgrace  himself  for  a  moral  purpose  which 
the  nineteenth  century  can  have  no  sympathy  with,  so  far 
as  society  is  concerned?  In  this  country,  perhaps  the  story 
seems  almost  unnatural ;  but  it  is  not  in  the  least  unnatural 
to  European  readers.     In  fact,  the  eccentricities  of  English 


304  TOLSTOI'S  "RESURRECTION" 

noblemen  have  furnished  parallels  in  points  of  strangeness 
within  the  memory  of  living  men.  A  generous  nature,  pro- 
foundly sympathetic,  moved  to  remorse  by  the  fullest  recog- 
nition of  the  consequences  of  a  fault,  and,  moreover,  re- 
ligious in  the  best  sense,  would  certainly  be  capable  of 
attempting  what  the  novelist  describes.  A  good  heart  is 
capable  of  any  sacrifice.  But  when  you  read  the  story, 
especially  if  you  read  it  in  the  French  translation,  which 
is  much  superior  in  many  respects  to  the  English,  you  will 
have  another  reason  to  feel  that  the  story  is  not  improbable. 
I  mean  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  it  is  not  simply  a 
story,  but  the  record  of  a  personal  experience.  The  man 
who  wrote  that  book  did  not  imagine  it;  he  saw  and  felt 
all  that  he  narrates;  he  is  telling  us  the  history  of  his  own 
faults  and  of  his  own  efforts  to  atone  for  them. 

One  of  the  fine  things  said  in  an  early  chapter  of  the 
book,  is  that  nobody  who  injures  another  human  being  can 
possibly  learn  the  extent  of  that  injury  until  he  attempts 
to  make  compensation.  The  young  nobleman  of  the  novel 
encounters  this  truth  from  the  start,  learns  with  surprise  the 
force  and  depth  of  it.  It  is  all  very  well  to  be  willing  to 
do  what  is  right,  but  the  doing  is  not  nearly  so  easy  a 
matter  as  might  be  supposed.  It  looks  a  very  simple  thing 
to  go  to  the  woman,  and  to  say  to  her,  "Forgive  me;  be 
my  wife ;  I  am  rich  and  influential,  I  can  protect  and  make 
you  happy."  But  when  the  man  actually  does  this,  he 
discovers  that  he  is  fighting  against  all  society,  all  laws. 
He  has,  as  a  wrong-doer,  been,  without  knowing  it,  work- 
ing as  a  part  of  the  great  social  machinery  that  crushes  the 
weak  for  the  benefit  of  the  strong.  Every  seducer  really 
helps  the  cruel  and  brutal  forces  of  society  by  his  treach- 
eries. He  is  working  for  all  that  is  selfish  and  bad  in 
society.  Society  helps  him  to  do  the  wrong,  and  afterwards 
it  helps  him  to  crush  the  victim  into  the  silence  and  the 
obscurity  of  hopeless  misery.  But  it  will  not  help  him  to 
undo  the  wrong.     Not  at  all.     When  he  tries  to  do  that, 


TOLSTOI'S  "RESURRECTION"  305 

society  turns  upon  him  in  the  name  of  morality  and  in  the 
name  of  common  sense.  He  becomes  then,  for  society,  an 
enemy,  a  fool,  a  person  no  longer  worthy  of  common  respect. 
So  when  the  nobleman  tries  to  rescue  the  woman  from  her 
unhappy  position,  the  world  simply  laughs  at  him,  the  law 
opposes  him,  and  his  friends  regard  him  with  scorn  as  one 
who  would  shamelessly  disgrace  the  society  to  which  he 
belongs.  Even  those  officials  who  might  be  willing  to  help 
him,  do  not  at  all  understand  his  motives.  His  only  sym- 
pathizers are  those  who  imagine  that  he  is  actuated  by 
sensual  passion;  and  it  requires  no  little  courage  on  his  part 
to  bear  this  variety  of  misapprehensions.  And  he  has  to 
bear  it  in  extraordinary  places  under  the  most  extraordinary 
circumstances.  He  is  obliged  to  go  to  the  officials  of  the 
prison  and  to  explain  to  them  that  he  wants  to  marry  that 
woman  who  has  been  accused  of  murder;  he  must  tell  them 
also  who  he  is — a  prince,  disgracing  the  race  from  which  he 
sprang.  He  must  associate  with  convicts  and  felons  in  the 
prisons,  and  submit  to  the  horrible  conditions  there  pre- 
vailing. He  must  bear  every  variety  of  insult.  And,  after 
all,  the  woman  for  whose  sake  he  bears  all  this,  utterly 
despises  him — reproaches  him,  mocks  him,  refuses  his  help. 
All  that  he  can  hope  for  is  to  soften  her  resentment  by 
patience  and  kindness.  So  he  follows  her  to  Siberia.  He 
actually  succeeds  in  having  her  sentence  remitted,  and  sets 
her  free  from  the  prison.  But  then  she  refuses  to  marry 
him,  and  marries  another  man.  That  is  the  whole  of  the 
story  in  brief.  The  wonderful  art  is  the  analysis  of  the 
emotions  of  its  characters,  and  the  strange  illustration  which 
it  affords  of  the  possible  result  of  a  single  selfish  act,  and 
of  the  tremendous  difficulty  in  the  way  of  repairing  that 
act.  There  are  several  hundred  figures  in  the  story — real 
living  figures — which  must  have  been  studies  from  life, 
and  which  are  so  very  human  that  the  reader  forgets  that 
he  is  reading  about  Russia.  Characters  are  of  the  very 
same  kind  in  every  land.     One  cannot  help  thinking  what 


306  TOLSTOI'S  "RESURRECTION" 

a  great  dramatist  Tolstoi  might  have  been  had  he  taken  to 
that  branch  of  literature. 

So  much  for  the  literary  facts  of  the  book.  That  which 
has  given  offence  is  not  concerned  with  the  art  of  those 
pages.  The  offensive  fact  is  that  the  author  has  dared  to 
preach  essentially  the  Christian  doctrine — the  doctrine  of 
human  love  as  held  by  the  ancient  Christians,  and  after  a 
manner  antagonistic  to  the  modern  doctrinal  and  political 
Christianity  of  Russia.  The  censors  who  could  find  in  such 
a  book  a  reason  for  his  excommunication  must  have  been, 
nevertheless,  determined  from  the  first  upon  that  course. 
For  the  alleged  chief  cause  of  the  sentence  is  that  Tolstoi 
spoke  of  Jesus  Christ  as  being  "only  a  man."  But  though 
such  be  the  doctrinal  reason  given,  the  resentment  must  have 
been  caused  by  something  else.  And  that  something  else 
was  indeed  a  much  more  serious  matter.  It  was  nothing 
else  than  the  manner  in  which  the  author  shows  that  the 
great  machinery  of  the  Church  is  quite  as  often  used  to 
uphold  injustice  as  to  make  for  justice;  and  that  there  is, 
even  among  the  aristocracy  of  the  Church,  a  kind  of  political 
indifference  to  the  essential  duties  of  that  Church.  After 
all,  the  author  has  really  effected  his  object  better  by  getting 
excommunicated  than  he  could  have  done  in  any  other  pos- 
sible way. 

In  calling  your  attention  to  this  very  terrible  and  won- 
derful book,  however,  it  is  my  duty  as  a  follower  of  Spencer, 
to  tell  you  that  some  of  its  social  theories  will  not  bear 
scientific  consideration.  In  this  respect  the  work  is  cer- 
tainly defective.  It  is  not  true,  for  example,  that  the  prac- 
tice of  perfect  brotherly  love  throughout  all  classes  of  society 
— the  abolishing  of  prisons,  the  abolition  of  criminal  law — 
it  is  not  true  that  any  of  these  things  are  possible  in  the 
present  state  of  humanity.  Everywhere  throughout  the 
book  we  meet  doubtful  and  startling  half-truths — for  ex- 
ample, the  statement  that  most  of  the  unhappiness  of  life 
is  caused  by  approaching  men  for  motives  of  interest  only, 


TOLSTOI'S  "RESURRECTION"  307 

without  sympathy  and  without  love.  If  you  can  really  love 
men  and  deal  with  them  only  in  the  loving  spirit,  the  author 
tells  us,  you  will  not  be  unhappy;  but  if  you  mingle  with 
men,  and  do  not  love  them,  if  you  do  business  with  them 
without  love,  then  the  most  frightful  misfortunes  will  result. 
This  sounds  beautiful,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  of  truth  in 
it,  but  by  no  means  all  the  truth.  The  existing  characters 
of  men  cannot  be  so  changed,  either  by  religious  teaching  or 
by  education  or  law  or  by  any  other  means,  as  to  render  such 
a  policy  of  life  even  thinkable.  And  the  book  is  full  of 
utterances  quite  as  remarkable  and  quite  as  illusive.  But 
the  defects  which  I  have  specified  are  after  all,  on  the  noble 
side;  they  do  not  really  spoil  the  work  in  the  least;  and 
they  make  even  men  who  cannot  accept  such  teaching,  who 
cannot  help  smiling  at  it,  think  in  a  generous  way  about 
matters  which  deserve  the  most  careful  consideration. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH 

The  term  is  drawing  to  a  close  and  we  shall  hardly  have 
time  for  any  elaborate  study;  so  I  shall  only  attempt  one 
more  short  lecture  upon  a  special  subject.     Yesterday  we 
were  speaking  of  the  classical  and  romantic  spirit  in  poetry. 
It  occurred  to  me  that  no  subject  could  illustrate  the  dif- 
ferences of  the  two  methods  more  forcibly  than  a  selection 
of  poems  upon  the  subject  of  death.     This,  I  need  scarcely 
say,  is  the  most  serious  of  all  subjects,  naturally  lending 
itself  as  an  inspiration  to  the  highest  forms  of  sublime  ex- 
pression as  well  as  to  the  most  ordinary  forms  of  simple 
pathos.     It  would  seem  to  be  especially  fitted  for  classical 
treatment;  indeed  a  majority  of  famous  poems  upon  death 
are  in  classical  form.     The  severe  and  constrained  laws  of 
classical  composition  would  appear  most  suitable  to  a  theme 
requiring  solemnity  and  measured  self-control.     But  I  think 
that,  opposite  to  almost  any  classical  utterance  upon  this 
grim  subject,  I  could  place  a  romantic  example  that  you 
would  find  much  more  touching  and  much  more  true  to  the 
real  spirit  of  poetry.     Let  me  now  choose  a  couple  of  ex- 
amples.    The  first  I  will  take  from  Bryant's  poem,  "Thana- 
topsis,"  selected  because  it  is  perhaps  more  widely  known 
than  any  other  modern  classical  utterance  which  has  achieved 
popularity  in  this  relation.     Bryant,  you  know,   was   an 
American  poet,  and  he  was  almost  the  only  American  poet 
of  real  note  who  was  frankly  classical.     Poe,  Longfellow, 
Whittier,  Emerson,  Lowell, — these  were  all  romanticists. 
Bryant  has  nothing  of  romance  in  his  composition;  but  as 
a  classic  poet  he  was  so  far  successful  that  some  of  his  choice 
work  now  belongs  to  English  literature  as  securely  as  almost 
anything  done  by  any  minor  English  poet.     These  are  the 
lines  to  which  I  refer: 

308 


SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH  309 

So  live,  that  when  thy  summons  comes  to  join 
The  innumerable  caravan,  which  moves 
To  that  mysterious  realm  where  each  one  takes 
His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  death, 
Thou  go  not,  like  the  quarry  slave  at  night, 
Scourged  to  his  dungeon,  but,  sustained  and  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy  grave 
Like  one  that  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams. 

These  lines  are  beautiful  in  a  cold  way.  They  express 
a  great  religious  and  moral  duty,  in  relation  to  death.  The 
imagery  has  a  certain  grandeur,  especially  the  dim  picture 
of  humanity  passing  from  birth  to  death  as  a  caravan  passes 
over  the  surface  of  a  desert.  Now,  "quarry  slave"  means 
a  slave  employed  at  cutting  stone  in  a  quarry.  Formerly 
such  slaves  were  treated  like  prisoners;  they  were  beaten 
while  at  work,  and  beaten  also  on  their  march  from  their 
quarters  to  the  place  of  labour  and  back  again.  Indeed, 
this  is  still  the  treatment  of  many  slaves  in  Northern  Africa 
under  Arab  or  Moorish  rule,  and  it  is  to  such  rule  that  the 
poet  refers.  His  lesson  is  this:  If  you  live  well,  you 
need  not  be  afraid  to  die.  Try  to  live  such  a  good  life 
that  when  death  comes  you  can  think  of  it  merely  as  a  man 
thinks  of  having  a  pleasant  sleep.  Wicked  men,  on  the 
other  hand,  think  of  death  as  the  slave  thinks  of  his  going 
and  coming,  with  terror,  under  the  lash  of  the  master. 
The  lesson  is  good,  and  consoling,  but  it  is  not  particularly 
original;  and  the  greatest  merit  of  the  composition  is  the 
well-sounding  blank  verse.  Now  this  is  exactly  according 
to  classical  canons.  The  verse  is  sonorous,  correct  and 
cold.  Perhaps  classic  verse  ought  to  be  in  such  cases  a 
little  cold.  One  must  not  show  too  much  emotion,  espe- 
cially in  treating  any  vast  and  solemn  subject.  I  think 
you  will  admire  the  lines  if  you  study  them  carefully;  but 
I  think  you  will  admire  much  more  a  little  thing,  a  very, 
very  small  thing,  about  a  dead  child,  which  I  am  going  to 


310  SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH 

quote  to  you  as  an  example  of  romantic  methods.  It  is  a 
mother's  dream  about  her  little  dead  boy.  Perhaps  this 
dream  was  inspired  by  an  old  superstition,  common  to  many 
parts  of  Europe,  that  the  tears  of  the  living  cause  pain 
and  sorrow  to  the  dead.  At  all  events  it  is  a  very  natural 
little  composition;  and  the  poet  is  William  Barnes,  who 
wrote  a  great  deal  of  touching  poetry  in  the  dialect  of 
Dorsetshire.  This  poem  is  not  in  dialect,  but  it  is  not 
according  to  classical  rules  at  all ;  it  is  almost  colloquial  in 
its  form. 

THE    MOTHER'S   DREAM 

I'd  a  dream  tonight 
As  I  fell  asleep, 
Oh!   the  touching  sight 
Makes  me  still  to  weep; 
Of  my  little  lad, 
Gone  to  leave  me  sad, 
Aye,  the  child  I  had 
But  was  not  to  keep. 

As  in  heaven  high 
I  my  child  did  seek, 
There,  in  train,  came  by 
Children  fair  and  meek, 
Each  in  lily  white, 
With  a  lamp  alight; 
Each  was  clear  to  sight, 
But  they  did  not  speak. 

Then  a  little  sad 
Came  my  child  in  turn, 
But  the  lamp  he  had 
Oh!  it  did  not  burn. 
He,  to  clear  my  doubt, 
Said,  half  turned  about, 
"Your  tears  put  it  out ; 
Mother,  never  mourn." 

Of  course  you  may  say  of  the  comparison  that  it  is  not 


SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH  311 

quite  fair, — that  in  the  one  case  we  have  a  cosmic  and 
didactic  idea,  and  in  the  other  only  an  individual  fancy. 
That  is  true.  But  were  I  to  compare  a  classic  fancy  only 
with  a  romantic  fancy  you  would  probably  find  the  con- 
trast still  more  powerful.  A  cosmic  idea  reinforced  by 
moral  sentiment  ought  to  produce  an  emotional  thrill.  Do 
Bryant's  lines  produce  such  a  thrill?  I  do  not  think  that 
they  do.  But  the  mother's  dream  does  produce  a  thrill  of 
purely  natural  emotion,  and  though  you  may  forget  the 
words  of  the  poem,  you  can  not  forget  the  fancy.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  you  forget  the  actual  words  of  Bryant's 
composition  there  is  very  little  left  to  think  about.  The 
images  are  grand,  but  they  are  indistinct  and  dark  and  leave 
no  impression  upon  the  memory.  Classical  verse  depends 
upon  form;  the  essence  of  romantic  verse  may  be  independ- 
ent of  form.  Probably  no  fervent  believer  in  classic  rules 
would  agree  with  the  poet  in  his  choice  of  a  five-syllable 
measure, — a  very  primitive  measure  indeed.  Yet  where 
there  is  true  poetic  feeling,  the  measure  is  a  matter  of 
secondary  importance. 

Can  we  mix  the  two  systems  together4?  Can  we  make  a 
poem  at  once  romantic  and  classic?  Certainly,  but  it  re- 
quires a  particular  emotional  character  to  do  this  well. 
Very  few  succeed  in  it.  However,  on  this  very  subject  of 
death  I  have  a  little  poem  by  one  of  Tennyson's  brothers, 
Charles  Tennyson  Turner.  Here  is  a  poem  not  only  upon 
a  very  solemn  subject,  but  even  somewhat  religious  into 
the  bargain,  and  written  by  a  clergyman,  and  put  into  the 
severe  form  of  the  sonnet, — and  yet  it  touches.  It  does 
not  touch  merely  because  it  expresses  a  generous  horror  of 
the  abominable  doctrine  that  all  persons  who  are  not  Chris- 
tians must  go  to  hell,  and  be  burned  alive  for  ever  and 
ever;  it  touches  really  because  it  is  full  of  true  romantic 
spirit,  full  of  warm  human  feeling,  upon  which  no  cold 
restraint  or  rule  has  been  placed.  It  is  about  the  mummy 
of  an  Egyptian  girl.     The  poet  lost  in  Egypt  a  daughter 


312  SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH 

called  Mary.  She  had  been  taken  to  Egypt  for  the  sake  of 
the  climate.  Some  time  afterward  the  bereaved  father  was 
shown  the  mummy  of  a  little  girl  probably  dead  for  a 
thousand  years  before  an  English  foot  ever  trod  the  land 
of  Egypt.  I  suppose  he  then  thought  to  himself,  "Four 
or  five  thousand  years  ago  the  father  and  the  mother  of 
this  little  girl  must  have  had  the  same  pain  that  I  and  my 
wife  now  have.  They  embalmed  their  little  daughter,  no 
doubt,  with  many  tears  and  prayers;  and  they  buried  with 
her  a  little  scroll  of  Egyptian  prayers  and  charms  for  the 
little  spirit  to  repeat  in  the  next  world.  How  wicked  it 
would  be  to  think  that  all  the  faith  and  love  of  those  mil- 
lions who  lived  in  times  past  have  been  of  no  moral  value." 
And  then  he  wrote  these  lines: 

When  the  four  quarters  of  the  world  shall  rise, 

Men,  women,  children,  at  the  judgment-time, 

Perchance  this  Memphian  girl,  dead  ere  her  prime, 

Shall  drop  her  mask,  and  with  dark  new-born  eyes 

Salute  our  English  Mary,  loved  and  lost; 

The  Father  knows  her  little  scroll  of  prayer 

And  life  as  pure  as  His  Egyptian  air ; 

For  though  she  knew  not  Jesus,  nor  the  cost 

At  which  He  won  the  world,  she  learned  to  pray 

And  though  our  own  sweet  babe  on  Christ's  good  name 

Spent  her  last  breath,  premonished  and  advised 

Of  Him,  and  in  His  glorious  Church  baptized, 

She  will  not  spurn  the  Old-World  child  away, 

Nor  put  her  poor  embalmed  heart  to  shame. 

The  beauty  of  this  poem  I  find  to  be  chiefly  the  struggle 
between  the  man's  religious  prejudices,  his  religious  educa- 
tion, and  the  natural  emotion  that  forces  him  to  think  more 
generously  about  matters  of  this  kind  than  other  clergymen 
might  do.  You  will  see  that  he  thinks  his  own  little  daugh- 
ter buried  there  will  rise  again  at  the  Judgment  Day,  not 
in  company  with  English  sisters,  but  with  the  ghosts  of 
the  old  Egyptian  pagans,  and  very  probably  with  the  very 
little  girl  whose  mummy  he  has  been  looking  at.     And  he 


SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH  313 

thinks  to  himself,  "Well,  my  daughter  will  love  that  little 
Egyptian  girl  and  want  to  play  with  her.  'Tis  true  that 
the  little  girl  was  not  a  Christian,  and  my  little  girl  was 
a  very  good  Christian.  But  perhaps  the  father  of  all  of 
us  will  find  the  Egyptian  child  to  be  quite  as  good  and 
pure  as  my  own;  she  must  have  been  good;  had  she  not 
learned  to  pray?"  Now  for  a  clergyman  of  the  English 
church  even  to  go  thus  far  in  the  direction  of  religious 
generosity  in  poetry  is  rather  remarkable;  you  may  think 
that  he  must  have  been  under  deep  emotion  when  he  wrote. 
He  wrote  this  with  perfect  classical  correctness,  but  he 
infused  into  the  poem  an  emotional  warmth  and  colour 
that  are  quite  contrary  to  classical  tradition.  As  I  said 
before,  it  is  the  suggestion  of  struggle  between  religion 
and  love  that  makes  for  me  the  great  beauty  of  the  son- 
net. 

The  best  sonnet  ever  written  by  Longfellow,  "Nature," 
shows  the  same  blending  of  romantic  feeling  with  classical 
elegance.  The  imagery  is  of  the  most  ordinary  kind;  not 
so  the  refined  verse  which  contains  it.  Although  called 
"Nature,"  this  is  really  a  poem  on  death. 

As  a  fond  mother  when  the  day  is  o'er 

Leads  by  the  hand  her  little  child  to  bed, 

Half  willing,  half  reluctant  to  be  led, 

And  leave  his  broken  playthings  on  the  floor, 

Still  gazing  at  them  through  the  open  door, 

Nor  wholly  reassured  and  comforted 

By  promises  of  others  in  their  stead, 

Which,  though  more  splendid,  may  not  please  him  more ; 

So  Nature  deals  with  us,  and  takes  away 

Our  playthings  one  by  one,  and  by  the  hand 

Leads  us  to  rest  so  gently,  that  we  go 

Scarce  knowing  if  we  wished  to  go  or  stay, 

Being  too  full  of  sleep  to  understand 

How  far  the  unknown  transcends  the  what  we  know. 

You  have  all  seen  such  a  universal  incident  as  the  poet 
here  describes — at  least  all  of  you   who   remember  your 


314  SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH 

own  childhood,  or  who  have  some  little  child  brother  or 
child  sister  to  remind  you  of  it.  The  child  is  very  sorry 
about  the  breaking  of  its  toys,  and  keeps  playing  with  the 
pieces  until  it  is  time  to  go  to  sleep.  Then  the  mother 
comes  and  says,  "Now  dear,  it  is  better  for  you  to  sleep: 
do  not  fret  about  your  toys, — I  will  buy  you  a  much  nicer 
toy  tomorrow."  So  the  child  goes  away  guided  by  the 
mother's  hand,  but  still  he  looks  back  regretfully  towards 
the  place  where  the  broken  toy  is  lying,  thinking  to  himself, 
"Yes — but  the  new  toy  will  not  be  so  pretty  as  the  broken 
one,  I  think!"  In  the  same  way  when  men  become  old  and 
their  work  is  only  half  done — therefore  broken,  as  it  were — 
death  comes  and  says,  "It  is  time  for  you  to  sleep."  A 
man  regrets  thus  having  to  go,  in  spite  of  the  promise 
religion  makes  to  him  about  happier  things  and  more  beau- 
tiful things  in  the  next  world.  But  he  is  not  able  to  think 
very  much  about  the  matter.  The  touch  of  death  makes 
him  too  sleepy  to  be  very  much  afraid  or  very  sorry,  just 
as  the  child  is  too  sleepy  at  bed  time  even  to  talk  about 
broken  toys  left  behind.  The  kind  of  death  here  described 
is  what  has  been  called  euthanasia,  the  fortunate  or  happy 
death  that  sometimes  comes  to  men  in  extreme  old  age,  and 
puts  them  to  sleep  quite  gently,  without  any  pain,  never 
to  wake  again. 

I  have  begun  with  these  examples  of  the  two  methods 
only  as  illustrative.  But  you  remember  that  the  title  of 
this  lecture  is  "Some  poems  on  Death,"  and  I  am  not  going 
to  attempt  so  vast  a  thing  as  a  general  lecture  upon  the 
subject  of  Death  in  English  poetry.  That  would  require 
years  of  lecturing.  What  I  am  going  to  talk  about  are  only 
certain  striking  later  poems  upon  this  topic, — poems  illus- 
trating the  later  thoughts  of  the  century  about  death  scien- 
tifically or  philosophically. 

The  poems  which  I  am  now  going  to  cite  will  refer  both 
to  death  as  signifying  change  and  to  the  dead  as  signifying 
a  living  influence — the  inherited  tendencies  which  shape 


SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH  315 

character.  For  example,  here  is  a  little  poem  about  the 
dead  who  continue  to  live  with  us.  To  you  perhaps  the 
ideas  in  this  poem  will  appear  very  old,  but  to  Western 
thought  they  are  new;  and  in  any  event  the  treatment  of 
the  idea  is  new.     The  title  is  "The  Dead." 

The  dead  abide  with  us !     Though  stark  and  cold 

Earth  seems  to  grip  them,  they  are  with  us  still ; 

They  have  forged  our  chains  of  being  for  good  or  ill ; 

And  their  invisible  hands  these  hands  yet  hold. 

Our  perishable  bodies  are  the  mould 

In  which  their  strong  imperishable  will — 

Mortality's  deep  yearning  to  fulfil — 

Hath  grown  incorporate  through  dim  time  untold. 

Vibrations  infinite  of  life  in  death 

As  a  star's  travelling  light  survives  its  star ! 

So  may  we  hold  our  lives,  that  when  we  are 

The  fate  of  those  who  then  will  draw  this  breath, 

They  shall  not  drag  us  to  their  judgment-bar, 

And  curse  the  heritage  which  we  bequeath. 

This  composition  by  Mathilde  Blind,  a  great  friend  of  the 
scientist  Wallace  and  now  widely  known  as  a  writer  of 
verse  upon  scientific  subjects,  contains  a  full  declaration 
of  the  evolutional  doctrine  of  heredity.  I  suppose  you 
know  the  wonderful  fact  here  referred  to  about  the  light 
of  the  star  continuing  to  live  long  after  the  star  is  dead. 
Astronomers  have  proved  to  us  that  we  are  still  able  to 
see  in  the  skies  an  appearance  of  stars  that  really  died  many 
thousands  of  years  ago.  But  those  stars  were  so  far  away 
that  it  took  their  light  all  that  time  to  reach  this  world; 
and  thus  we  are  still  able  to  see  the  light,  because  it  began 
to  travel  towards  us  before  the  stars  died,  and  has  not  yet 
finished  coming.  The  suggestion  is  that  the  will  of  the 
dead,  in  the  meaning  of  tendency  as  well  as  in  that  of 
desire,  survives  the  body  and  continues  to  act,  much  as  the 
light  of  a  dead  star  continues  to  travel. 

Within  late  years  the  idea  of  this  moral  responsibility 
to  the  future  and  to  the  past  has  begun  to  make  itself 


316  SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH 

more  and  more  felt  in  Western  poetry.  In  Eastern 
poetry  it  is  old;  in  Western  poetry  it  is  almost  new.  A 
hundred  years  ago  no  person  would  have  thought  of  writ- 
ing such  stanzas  as  these  following,  at  least  in  a  poem 
upon  the  brotherhood  of  nations  with  a  common  origin. 
The  nations  are  England  and  the  United  States,  and  the 
poem,  by  Helen  Gray  Cone,  is  addressed  to  "Fair  Eng- 
land." 

What !  phantoms  are  we,  spectre-thin, 

Unfathered,  out  of  nothing  born? 
Did  Being  in  this  world  begin 

With  blaze  of  yestermorn? 

Nay!     Sacred  Life,  a  scarlet  thread, 

Through  lost  unnumbered  lives  has  run; 

No  strength  can  tear  us  from  the  dead; 
The  sire  is  in  the  son. 

Such  an  utterance  would  have  startled  the  English  eight- 
eenth century;  perhaps  the  only  poet  of  Johnson's  time 
who  could  have  found  the  meaning  of  it  would  have  been 
Blake.  But  the  idea  that  the  will  of  the  dead  influences 
the  acts  and  the  thoughts  of  the  living  is  not  merely  ex- 
pressed in  a  general  way  in  latter-day  poetry.  Sometimes 
fancy  furnishes  details,  incidents,  suggestions  that  touch  us 
better  than  any  general  statement  could  do.  Here  I  have 
a  little  poem  by  Richard  Burton,  called  "The  Forefather." 
It  is  interesting  as  a  sign  of  the  thought  of  the  times.  A 
young  man  in  the  country  lying  down  to  sleep  at  night 
is  startled  by  the  strange  sensation  of  being  in  a  battle. 
Everything  about  him  is  dark  and  silent;  yet  it  seems  to 
him  that  he  can  hear,  as  if  it  were  in  his  own  heart,  the 
clash  of  arms,  the  shouting  of  the  captains,  all  the  clamour 
of  a  great  contest;  and  he  can  even  feel  the  excitement  of 
battle  within  himself.  Is  he  dreaming?  No,  he  is  awake; 
and  these  ideas  and  feelings  come  to  him  involuntarily. 


SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH  317 

But  let  us  quote  his  own  words  and  his  interpretation  of  the 
mystery : 

Here  at  the  country  inn, 
I   lie  in  my  quiet  bed, 
And  the  ardent  onrush  of  armies 
Throbs  and  throbs  in  my  head. 

Why,  in  this  calm,  sweet  place, 

Where  only  silence  is  heard, 
Am  I  ware  of  the  crash  of  conflict — 

Is  my  blood  to  battle  stirred? 

Without,  the  night  is  blessed 

With  the  smell  of  pines,  with  stars ; 

Within,  is  the  mood  of  slumber, 
The  healing  of  day-time  scars. 

'Tis  strange,  yet  I  am  thrall 

To  epic  agonies ; 
The  tumult  of  myriads  dying 

Is  borne  to  me  on  the  breeze. 

Mayhap  in  the  long  ago, 

My  forefather  grim  and  stark 
Stood  in  some  hell  of  carnage, 

Face  forward,  fell  in  the  dark. 

And  I,  who  have  always  known 

Peace  with  her  dove-like  ways, 
Am  gripped  by  his  martial  spirit 

Here  in  the  afterdays. 

I  cannot  rightly  tell : 

I  lie,  from  all  stress  apart, 
And  the  ardent  onrush  of  armies 

Surges  hot  through  my  heart. 

Perhaps  you  will  have  noticed  the  expression  in  the  second 
stanza  about  silence  being  heard;  and  if  you  have  never 
seen  it  before  it  may  seem  strange  to  you.  Western  poets 
often  use  this  expression  to  signify  the  most  intense  silence. 


318  SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH 

It  is  very  much  like  another  and  commoner  expression, 
"You  could  almost  hear  the  night  breathe."  Such  expres- 
sions imply  only  that  in  the  great  stillness  sounds  can  be 
heard  which  are  never  heard  in  the  daytime. 

An  Englishwoman,  Alice  Meynell,  has  produceed  a  beau- 
tiful poem  upon  the  topic  we  are  discussing.  It  is  called 
"The  Modern  Poet."  The  idea  of  the  poem  is  less  fantastic 
than  that  of  the  one  which  I  have  given  above,  but  it  is  more 
touching  and  more  true;  it  is  simply  that  power  to  see 
and  to  feel  the  beautiful,  and  the  power  to  express  the  vision 
or  the  feeling  in  poetical  language,  come  to  us  from  the 
dead.  The  poet  can  write  beautiful  things  only  because 
the  thoughts  and  the  impulses  of  thousands,  perhaps  mil- 
lions, of  poetical  ancestors  are  in  his  blood.  If  he  delights 
in  the  clear  blue  of  a  summer  sky,  or  the  snowy  beauty  of 
mountain  peaks,  or  the  dancing  of  sunlight  upon  the  waters, 
it  is  because  the  dead  within  him  loved  all  these  things  and 
rejoiced  in  the  Nature  that  inspires  him  to  sing.  The 
beauty  of  this  composition  is  not  confined  to  the  thought, 
however;  the  similes  are  remarkably  effective  and  impos- 
ing. 

I  come  from  nothing;  but  from  where 
Come  the  undying  thoughts  I  bear? 

Down  through  long  links  of  death  and  birth, 

From  the  past  poets  of  the  earth. 
My  immortality  is  there. 

I  am  like  the  blossom  of  an  hour, 

But  long,  long  vanished  sun  and  shower 

Awoke  my  breath  in  the  young  world's  air. 

I  track  the  past  back  everywhere 
Through  seed  and  flower,  and  seed  and  flower. 

Or  I  am  like  a  stream  that  flows 
Full  of  the  cold  springs  that  arose 

In  morning  lands,  in  distant  hills ; 

And  down  the  plain  my  channel  fills 
With  melting  of  forgotten  snows. 


SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH  319 

Voices  I  have  not  heard  possessed 

My  own  fresh  songs ;  my  thoughts  are  blessed 

With  relics  of  the  far  unknown ; 

And  mixed  with  memories  not  my  own 
The  sweet  streams  throng  into  my  breast. 

Before  this  life  began  to  be, 

The  happy  songs  that  wake  in  me 

Woke  long  ago,  and  far  apart; 

Heavily  on  this  little  heart 
Presses  this  immortality. 

We  shall  see  how  beautiful  this  is  better  by  a  paraphrase: 
"You  say  that  I  am  come  from  Nothing.  But  where  do 
the  immortal  thoughts  which  I  have,  come  from4?  I  know 
where  they  come  from;  from  the  thousand  generations  of 
the  past,  from  millions  and  millions  of  brains  and  hearts 
that  are  dust,  from  myriads  of  long-dead  poets  these  beauti- 
ful thoughts  must  have  come  to  me.  Only  in  thought  is 
there  any  real  immortality,  and  by  thought  I  know  myself 
immortal.  It  is  true  that  I  am  only  like  the  flower  that 
lives  but  for  a  little  time.  But  the  race  of  flowers  to  which 
I  belong  was  brought  into  existence  millions  of  years  ago. 
Dead  suns  ripened  it,  the  soil  of  long  vanished  worlds 
nourished  the  roots  of  it.  I  can  trace  back  the  past  through 
all  times  through  all  the  beginnings,  beyond  all  the  blos- 
somings. 

"Or  this  life  of  mine  might  be  compared  to  a  river  flow- 
ing full  of  cold  water,  cold  and  pure  water,  water  that  rose 
in  the  clear  springs  of  mountains  too  far  away  to  be  seen, 
in  countries  too  far  away  to  be  visited.  And  in  the  great 
plain  through  which  I  flow  I  feel  my  channel  filled  with 
the  melting  of  snow  that  fell  so  far  away,  so  long  ago,  that 
its  falling  can  not  be  remembered. 

"I  hear  speaking  within  my  heart,  voices  that  are  not 
mine;  and  these  voices  also  speak  in  the  songs  that  I  write. 
My  very  thoughts  are  not  my  own  thoughts;  thoughts  of 
the  dead,  thoughts  of  the  things  that  have  happened  in 


320  SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH 

times  unknown,  in  places  unknown,  are  mixed  with  them, 
and  the  feelings  and  the  ideas  belonging  to  other  lives  and 
the  memories  of  other  lives  pour  into  my  heart. 

"Before  ever  I  was  born,  the  joyful  imaginations  that  I 
expressed  in  my  poems  existed  in  other  minds,  in  other 
lives,  at  long  intervals  of  time.  And  the  whole  emotion 
of  dead  worlds,  of  dead  generations,  presses  upon  my  life. 
Hard  it  is  to  bear  within  one  the  weight  of  the  past." 

You  will  see  the  beauty  of  this  more  and  more  each  time 
that  you  read  it  over.  The  suggestions  are  of  the  most 
general  kind;  but  they  are  not  less  grand  for  that.  How- 
ever, examples  of  imagination  of  the  same  kind  are  not 
wanting,  and  some  of  them  are  very  remarkable. 

A  French  boy  named  Henri  Charles  Read,  who  died  at 
the  age  of  nineteen,  was  the  author  of  some  very  curious 
poetry  on  this  subject.  Young  as  he  was,  the  great  mys- 
tery of  life  oppressed  him,  the  new  thought  of  the  nineteenth 
century  only  increased  the  weight  of  the  riddle  that  troubled 
him.  He  was  not  able  in  so  short  a  life  to  master  the 
teachings  of  the  new  philosophy  in  regard  to  the  problem, 
but  he  was  able  to  express  that  problem  in  a  very  simple  and 
touching  way. 

I  think  that  God  resolved  to  be 

Ungenerous  when  I  came  on  earth. 
And  that  the  heart  He  gave  to  me 

Was  old  already  ere  my  birth. 

He  placed  within  my  youthful  breast 

A  worn-out  heart  to  save  expense, 
A  heart  long  tortured  by  unrest 

And  torn  by  passion's  violence. 

Its  thousand  thousand  scars  proclaim 

A  thousand  episodes  of  woe, 
And  yet  I  know  not  how  it  came 

By  all  those  wounds  which  hurt  it  so. 


SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH  321 

Within  its  chambers  linger  hosts 

Of  passion's  memories,  never  mine, — 

Dead  fires,  dreams  faded-out,  the  ghosts 
Of  suns  that  long  have  ceased  to  shine. 

O  weirdest  fate,  most  ghastly  woe, 
Anguish  unrivalled,  peerless  pain, — 

To  wildly  love  and  never  know 
The  object  wildly  loved  in  vain! 

That  a  young  boy  should  have  felt  these  things  is  not 
at  all  wonderful;  what  is  wonderful  only  is  that  without 
scientific  teaching  he  should  have  been  able  to  express  the 
feeling  so  wonderfully.  Undoubtedly  the  lad  was  a  natu- 
ral genius,  and  would  have  been  a  very  great  poet  if  gifted 
with  the  strength  to  live.  But  he  was  early  carried  off  by 
a  disease  of  the  lungs.  His  few  but  remarkable  poems  are 
now  well  known  to  thinkers  in  every  country  of  Europe. 
The  last  stanza  of  the  little  composition  intimates,  of  course, 
that  the  awakening  of  this  frail  and  beautiful  talent  was 
coincident  with  the  first  change  from  boyhood  to  manhood. 

But  there  is  another  way  in  which  the  dead  live  on  besides 
the  path  of  hereditary  tendency.  They  live  not  only  in  the 
minds  and  the  hearts  of  their  descendants;  art  also  some- 
times furnishes  them  with  a  body.  You  know  some  of  the 
old  Greek  stories  on  this  subject,  perhaps;  certainly  you 
know  many  Chinese  and  Japanese  stories  about  pictures  or 
statues  having  ghosts,  living  with  the  life  of  that  which  they 
represented.  Western  poetry  has  very  little  on  this  sub- 
ject, but  the  little  is  interesting  in  more  ways  than  one. 
I  do  not  speak  of  such  stories  as  that  of  Pygmalion,  who 
made  the  statue  of  a  beautiful  woman  and  fell  in  love  with 
it,  so  that  the  gods  took  pity  on  him  and  made  the  statue 
alive.  That  story  has  really  nothing  to  do  with  the  subject 
of  which  I  am  speaking.  I  mean  the  idea  that  in  painting 
a  picture  or  making  a  statue,  something  of  the  soul  of  the 


322  SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH 

person  represented  entered  into  the  work.  This  is  rather 
an  Eastern  than  a  Western  fancy ;  and  as  I  say,  it  has  been 
very  little  treated  by  Western  poets,  although  Edgar  Poe 
has  a  prose  story  about  an  artist  who  painted  so  perfectly 
the  picture  of  a  girl  that  all  her  soul  went  out  of  her  body 
into  the  picture,  and  she  died.  But  we  have  one  modern, 
indeed,  very  recent  poem  about  a  Greek  vase,  which  em- 
bodies this  notion  in  a  very  pretty  way.  It  is  by  an  Ameri- 
can poet  called  Sherman. 

Divinely  shapen  cup,  thy  lip 
Unto  me  seemeth  thus  to  speak: 
"Behold  in  me  the  workmanship, 
The  grace  and  cunning  of  a  Greek! 

Long  ages  since  he  mixed  the  clay, 
Whose  sense  of  symmetry  was  such 
The  labour  of  a  single  day 
Immortal  grew  beneath  his  touch. 

For,  dreaming  while  his  fingers  went 
Around  this  slender  neck  of  mine 
The  form  of  her  he  loved  was  blent 
With  every  matchless  curve  and  line. 

Her  loveliness  to  me  he  gave 
Who  gave  unto  herself  his  heart, 
That  love  and  beauty  from  the  grave 
Might  rise  and  live  again  in  art." 

And  hearing  from  thy  lips  this  tale, 
Of  love  and  skill,  of  art  and  grace, 
Thou  seem'st  to  me  no  more  the  frail 
Memento  of  an  older  race : 

But  in  thy  form  divinely  wrought 
And  figured  o'er  with  fret  and  scroll, 
I  dream,  by  happy  chance  was  caught, 
And  dwelleth  now,  that  maiden's  soul. 

There  is  exactly  such  an  idea  in  the  old  Chinese  story 


SOME  POEMS  ON  DEATH  323 

about  that  god  of  porcelain,  once  a  human  workman  who 
burnt  himself  in  a  furnace  in  order  that  the  vase  which  he 
was  making  by  command  of  the  Emperor  should  become 
perfect.  The  legend  says  that  his  soul  went  into  the  vase, 
and  that,  when  tapped  with  a  finger,  it  would  utter  the  name 
of  its  maker. 

I  suppose  that  we  have  now  read  a  sufficient  number  of 
illustrative  poems  on  this  subject.  Before  concluding,  I 
want  you  to  notice  particularly  that  the  thoughts  in  the 
poems  which  I  have  quoted  are  not,  in  most  cases,  Western 
thoughts,  and  that  the  poems  belong  to  a  new  era  of  imagina- 
tion. They  represent  exotic  influence,  especially  Oriental 
influence — partly  Indian,  no  doubt,  but  also  in  part  Chinese 
and  Japanese.  It  is  a  very  interesting  subject  to  which  we 
may  return  again,  this  influence  of  Eastern  thought  upon 
Western  poetry.  I  think  that  it  is  constantly  growing,  and 
that  we  shall  see  and  hear  much  more  of  it.  And  I  may 
say  that  even  Tennyson  was  slightly  affected  by  these 
new  influences  before  he  passed  away.  His  swan-song, 
"Crossing  the  Bar,"  owes  most  of  its  beauties  to  fancies 
much  more  Oriental  than  Occidental.  The  infinite  sea  of 
which  he  speaks  in  that  poem,  that  sea  with  the  moving  of 
whose  tides  worlds  and  lives  come  and  go,  what  is  it  after 
all  but  the  Oriental  Sea  of  Death  and  Birth'? — and  the 
Bark,  what  is  it  as  a  symbol  but  the  ancient  Buddhist  vessel 
of  Faith,  in  which  the  virtues  may  pass  to  the  further  shore"? 
Yet  Tennyson  was,  after  all,  somewhat  old-fashioned.  If 
even  he  was  inspired  to  create  so  enchanting  a  thing  as 
"Crossing  the  Bar"  by  the  new  influences  from  the  thought 
of  the  East,  we  may  be  tolerably  sure  that  the  poets  of  the 
present  century,  the  new  era  just  beginning,  will  produce 
work  much  more  akin  in  thought  and  feeling  to  Eastern 
philosophical  poetry  than  their  predecessors  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 


CHAPTER  XX 
SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE 

I  suppose  you  know  by  this  time  that  the  word  "fairy"  is 
a  very  modern  word  as  used  in  the  sense  of  spirit.  The 
original  meaning  of  the  word  was  magic,  supernatural 
power,  and  the  old  English  writers  used  it  in  this  sense. 
So  does  Sir  Walter  Scott  sometimes.  The  word  used  to  be 
spelled  "faerie";  and  the  term  "faerie  land"  originally 
meant  "land  of  magic."  Much  later  the  term  was  applied 
to  a  supernatural  being  or  person,  for  which  the  real  English 
word  was  El,  or  Elf. 

The  El-people  were  Northern  fairies.  But  where  did 
the  whole  conception  of  fairies  come  from?  The  Romans 
had  their  Fatse,  in  many  respects  like  our  fairies.  But 
there  are  a  great  many  curious  ideas  regarding  fairies  which 
we  must  look  to  the  history  of  religion  to  explain.  When 
the  Christian  church  first  began  to  exercise  a  great  influence 
in  the  old  Roman  world,  its  priests  never  even  dreamed  of 
telling  the  people  that  there  were  no  such  things  as  gods 
or  spirits.  Quite  the  contrary.  The  church  said  that  all 
the  gods  and  spirits  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  world  really 
existed,  only  they  were  no  true  gods  but  evil  spirits  who 
took  the  shape  of  gods.  Gradually  all  the  shadowy  people 
of  all  beliefs  were  transformed  in  the  popular  imagination; 
they  were  no  longer  worshipped,  but  they  were  feared.  To 
worship  them  constituted  the  crime  of  magic. 

So  much  for  the  classical  part  of  the  belief.  Now  when 
the  Northern  races  over-ran  Southern  Europe,  they  brought 
other  superstitions  with  them  from  Norway,  Sweden,  Den- 
mark, Germany — especially  superstitions  of  the  El-people. 
It  would  have  been  of  no  use  for  the  church  to  tell  these 
men  that  the  El-people  did  not  exist;  moreover,  the  church 

324 


SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE  325 

was  inclined  to  believe  that  they  did  exist.  So  they  were 
left  to  keep  the  belief  in  the  El-people,  on  condition  that 
they  did  not  worship  them. 

The  Celtic  peoples  in  Ireland,  England,  Scotland,  and 
Western  France,  the  original  populations  conquered  by  the 
men  of  the  North,  had  very  strange  beliefs  of  their  own 
about  spirits  inhabiting  woods,  rivers  and  mountains,  spirits 
capable  of  assuming  a  hundred  forms.  Christianity  tol- 
erated beliefs  of  this  kind  also.  They  have  not  yet  dis- 
appeared. In  Scotland,  they  are  beginning  to  disappear, 
because  of  the  spread  of  education  and  of  industry.  Ireland 
and  Britanny  remain  especially  the  regions  in  which  fairy 
beliefs  widely  prevail;  and  the  attachment  of  the  people 
there  to  religion  may  have  something  to  do  with  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  belief  in  fairies. 

So  you  see  that  there  are  three  elements  in  the  belief  about 
fairies,  the  Northern,  the  classical,  and  the  Celtic.  Mingled 
altogether,  these  three  elements  eventually  produced  a  won- 
derful amount  of  romantic,  poetic,  and  also  terrible,  imag- 
ination. In  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  a  great 
deal  of  attention  was  given  to  fairy  literature,  principally 
owing  to  the  influence  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Fairy  stories 
of  foreign  origin  were  translated  into  English  in  great  num- 
bers. In  the  latter  part  of  the  century  there  was  for  a 
time  something  of  a  popular  reaction  against  the  romantic 
and  supernatural  element  either  in  prose  or  in  poetry.  But 
now  another  reaction  has  set  in,  and  fairy  literature  has 
again  become  popular.  It  has  one  representative  poet,  Wil- 
liam Butler  Yeats,  who  himself  collected  a  great  number  of 
stories  and  legends  about  fairies  from  the  peasantry  of 
Southern  Ireland. 

Now  to  give  a  detailed  account  of  fairy  superstitions 
would  be  of  little  use  in  this  place;  for  a  great  deal  of 
ghostly  detail  at  one  time  has  the  effect  of  numbing  the 
imagination,  and  the  student  can  not  readily  perceive  the 
literary  value  of  these  details, — a  fact  that  Walter  Scott 


326  SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE 

perceived  long  ago.  His  words  were:  "The  supernatural 
is  a  spring  that  is  particularly  apt  to  lose  its  elasticity,  if  too 
much  pressed  upon."  The  best  way  to  learn  about  the 
romantic  side  of  fairy  beliefs  is  to  read  the  poems  and 
stories  themselves,  a  little  at  a  time.  If  you  read  much  of 
this  kind  of  thing  at  once  you  are  likely  to  get  tired  of  it, 
or  at  least  to  feel  your  intellect  offended  by  the  sense  of  the 
improbable.  Yet  I  think  that  you  will  be  interested  by  a 
little  piece  called  "The  Host  of  the  Air,"  which  is  the  best 
modern  fairy  poem  by  far  which  I  know  of.  By  "mod- 
ern" in  this  case  I  mean  produced  in  our  own  time;  for  the 
fairy  poem  of  Keats  is  also  modern,  in  so  far  as  it  belongs 
to  the  century. 

O'Driscoll  drove  with  a  song 

The  wild  duck  and  the  drake, 
From  the  tall  and  the  tufted  weeds 

Of  the  drear  Hart  Lake. 

And  he  saw  how  the  weeds  grew  dark 

At  the  coming  of  night  tide ; — 
And  he  dreamed  of  the  long  dim  hair, 

Of  Bridget,  his  bride. 

He  heard  while  he  sang  and  dreamed 

A  piper  piping  away, 
And  never  was  piping  so  sad, 

And  never  was  piper  so  gay. 

And  he  saw  young  men  and  young  girls 

Who  danced  on  a  level  place, 
And  Bridget  his  bride  among  them 

With  a  sad  and  a  gay  face. 

The  dancers  crowded  about  him, 

And  many  a  sweet  thing  said ; 
And  a  young  man  brought  him  red  wine, 

And  a  young  girl  white  bread. 


SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE  327 

But  Bridget  drew  him  by  the  sleeve, 

Away  from  the  merry  bands, 
To  old  men  playing  at  cards, 

With  a  twinkling  of  ancient  hands. 

The  bread  and  the  wine  had  a  doom; 

For  these  were  the  host  of  the  air ; 
He  sat  and  played  in  a  dream 

Of  her  long  dim  hair. 

He  played  with  the  merry  old  men, 

And  thought  not  of  evil  chance, 
Till  one  bore  Bridget  his  bride 

Away  from  the  merry  dance. 

He  bore  her  away  in  his  arms, 

The  handsomest  young  man  there ; 
And  his  neck  and  his  breast  and  his  arms 

Were  drowned  in  her  long  dim  hair. 

O'Driscoll  got  up  from  the  grass 
And  scattered  the  cards  with  a  cry; 

But  the  old  men  and  dancers  were  gone, 
As  a  cloud  faded  into  the  sky. 

He  knew  now  the  host  of  the  air, 

And  his  heart  was  blackened  by  dread ; 

And  he  ran  to  the  door  of  his  house : — 
Old  women  were  keening  the  dead. 

But  he  heard  high  up  in  the  air 

A  piper  piping  away; 
And  never  was  piping  so  sad, 

And  never  was  piping  so  gay ! 

This  is  not  consummate  verse,  but  as  a  fairy  poem  it 
could  not  be  surpassed.  It  has,  in  an  extraordinary  way, 
the  power  of  communicating  the  pleasure  of  fear,  which  is  a 
great  art  in  poetry.  And  the  words,  the  fancies,  are  all  of 
the  strange  kind  which  should  belong  to  so  strange  a  story. 
How  naturally  the  enchantment  begins:  a  man  is  amusing 


328  SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE 

himself  in  a  lonesome  place  by  driving  away  the  wild  birds, 
which  are  protected  by  the  fairies.  Night  is  coming,  and 
for  the  first  time  he  notices  how  tall  the  grass  looks  beside 
the  lake,  and  how  black  against  the  sunset.  But  it  is 
beautiful  too,  and  makes  him  think  of  the  beautiful  long 
dusky  hair  of  the  young  wife  he  has  just  married.  The  next 
moment,  as  he  walks  along  the  shore  he  finds  himself  in  a 
pleasure  party,  among  young  people  whom  he  thinks  he 
knows,  and  there  is  his  wife  too.  They  treat  him  very 
kindly  and  play  cards  with  him.  He  is  quite  happy.  They 
are  fairies,  but  he  does  not  know,  and  he  is  not  yet  in  their 
power.  But  they  bring  him  wine  and  bread,  wine  red  as 
blood,  bread  white  as  flesh.  He  eats  and  drinks;  now  the 
fairies  have  power  to  take  their  revenge.  They  disappear, 
he  runs  home  in  terrible  fear,  and  as  he  comes  to  his  house 
he  hears  a  death-cry.  His  bride  is  dead.  She  has  been 
taken  by  the  fairies.  It  was  her  spirit  that  he  saw  at  the 
dancing.  At  that  time  the  spirit  might  have  returned  to 
the  body,  but  when  he  ate  the  fairy  bread  and  drank  the 
fairy  wine,  he  really  gave  his  young  bride's  life  away. 

You  may  be  here  reminded  of  some  of  the  old  Japanese 
folk  stories;  there  are  many  Western  fairy  tales  which  re- 
semble them.  But  the  fairy  belief  is  much  more  terrible 
and  gloomy;  there  is  no  humour  in  it;  it  is  the  subject  of 
supreme  fear.  Now  this  little  composition,  simple  as  it 
looks,  contains  a  great  deal  of  information  about  fairy  be- 
liefs that  you  would  not  notice  at  the  first  sight.  Perhaps 
you  did  not  notice  the  contradiction  of  the  statement  about 
the  music  being  sad  and  merry  at  the  same  time,  and  about 
the  face  of  the  bride  being  at  once  sad  and  glad.  One  of 
the  signs  by  which  a  fairy  may  be  known  is  that  even  when 
smiling  and  laughing  there  is  something  very  sad  both  in  the 
tone  of  voice  and  the  look  of  the  eyes.  And  the  music 
which  the  fairy  plays,  however  lively  it  seems,  has  a  pene- 
trating melancholy  tone.  In  many  parts  of  the  country 
it  is  generally  understood  that  you  must  not  annoy  the 


SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE  329 

wild  birds  without  reason.  If  you  do,  fairies  will  take 
revenge.  If  you  taste  their  food,  there  is  no  more  hope  for 
you.  I  think  you  will  remember  Miss  Rossetti's  poem  on 
the  subject  of  tasting  fairy-food,  the  poem  "Goblin  Market." 
This  is  the  same  idea.  After  eating  such  food  one  with- 
ers and  dies.  But  how  about  the  power  to  take  away  the 
life  of  another  person  who  does  not  taste'? 

There  is  a  queer  imagination  about  this.  When  fairies 
want  to  take  a  person  away  from  this  world  into  fairy-land, 
the  Irish  say  that  they  make  the  person  melancholy,  tired 
of  life.  If  you  are  melancholy  and  do  not  care  whether 
you  live  or  die,  the  fairies  get  power  to  take  you  away. 
You  die  and  your  soul  becomes  a  fairy.  But  you  can  never 
go  to  heaven  after  that.  The  condition  of  fairy  existence  is 
happiness  in  this  world  only;  there  is  no  other  world  for 
them,  and  no  immortality.  This  is  one  form  of  the  belief. 
The  darker  form  is  that  all  fairies  are  eventually  doomed 
to  eternal  fire,  and  that  every  seven  years  one  must  be 
taken  away  unless  a  human  being  can  be  offered  as  a  sub- 
stitute. Upon  the  latter  belief  was  founded  the  very  beau- 
tiful English  ballad  of  "Tarn  lin,"  the  best  indeed  of  all 
the  English  fairy  ballads.  Its  beauty  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  pictures  the  courage  of  love  against  supernatural  fear. 

Of  course  the  most  famous  fairy  literature  belongs  to 
popular  literature,  to  the  literature  of  the  ballad;  but  for 
the  moment  I  am  intending  only  to  call  your  attention  to 
celebrated  poems  of  a  less  known  variety,  and  I  shall  not 
quote  from  works  in  dialect.  So  only  recommending  you 
to  study  the  ballad  just  mentioned,  I  shall  go  on  to  speak  of 
its  theme  as  handled  by  various  eminent  poets.  One  of 
these  was  Sir  Samuel  Ferguson,  a  poet  of  very  considerable 
ability,  some  of  whose  work  will  live  long  in  English  litera- 
ture. His  "Fairy  Thorn"  is  justly  celebrated,  not  only  as 
excellent  poetry,  but  as  having  extraordinary  power  in 
arousing  the  sensation  of  the  weird.  The  story  is  of  three 
country  girls,  who  go  out  to  dance  upon  a  hillside,  and  on 


830  SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE 

the  way  invite  a  fourth,  the  most  beautiful  girl  in  the  vil- 
lage, to  accompany  them.     They  begin  to  dance. 

The  merry  maidens  four  have  ranged  them  in  a  row, 
Between  each  lovely  couple  a  stately  rowan  stem, 

And  away  in  mazes  wavy  like  skimming  birds  they  go; — 
Oh !  never  carolled  bird  like  them ! 

But  solemn  is  the  silence  of  the  silvery  haze, 

That  drinks  away  their  voices  in  echoless  repose 
And  dreamily  the  evening  has  stilled  the  haunted  braes,   } 

And  dreamier  the  gloaming  grows. 

And  sinking  one  by  one  like  lark  notes  from  the  sky, 

When  the  falcon's  shadow  saileth  across  the  open  shaw, 

Are  hushed  the  maidens'  voices,  as  cowering  down  they  lie, 
In  the  flutter  of  their  sudden  awe. 

For  from  the  air  above,  and  the  grassy  ground  beneath, 

And  from  the  mountain  ashes,  and  the  old  whitethorn  between, 

A  power  of  faint  enchantment  doth  through  their  beings  breathe, 
And  they  sink  down  together  on  the  green. 

They  sink  together  silent,  and,  stealing  side  by  side, 

They  fling  their  lovely  arms  o'er  their  drooping  necks  so  fair, 

Then  vainly  strive  again  their  naked  arms  to  hide, — 
For  their  shrinking  necks  again  are  bare. 

Thus  clasped  and  prostrate  all,  with  their  heads  together  bowed, 
Soft  o'er  their  bosoms  beating — the  only  human  sound — 

They  hear  the  silken  footsteps  of  the  silent  fairy  crowd, 
Like  a  river  in  the  air,  gliding  round. 

No  scream  can  any  raise,  no  prayer  can  any  say, 
But  wild,  wild  the  terror  of  the  speechless  three; 

For  they  feel  fair  Anna  Grace  drawn  silently  away, 
By  whom  they  dare  not  look  to  see. 

They  feel  their  tresses  twine  with  her  parting  locks  of  gold, 
And  the  curls  elastic  falling,  as  her  head  withdraws ; 

They  feel  her  sliding  arms  from  their  tranced  arms  unfold, 
But  they  dare  not  look  to  see  the  cause. 


SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE  331 

For  heavy  on  their  senses  the  faint  enchantment  lies, 
Through  all  that  night  of  anguish  and  perilous  amaze; 

And  neither  fear  nor  wonder  can  ope  their  quivering  eyes, 
Or  their  limbs  from  the  cold  ground  raise. 

So  they  remain  until  morning,  when  the  enchantment  is 
dissolved ;  then  they  fly  home  in  terror.  But  from  that  night 
they  pine  away,  and  die  within  the  year.  As  for  the  girl 
stolen  away,  she  is  never  seen  or  heard  of  again.  I  have 
not  quoted  the  whole  of  the  poem,  but  it  is  all  very  beau- 
tiful and  very  weird.  Notice  even  the  weirdness  of  these 
lines  describing  the  dance : 

They're  glancing  through  the  glimmer  of  the  quiet  eve, 

Away  in  milky  wavings  of  neck  and  ankle  bare ; 
The  heavy-sliding  stream  in  its  sleeping  song  they  leave, 

And  the  crags  in  the  ghostly  air. 

Now  this  has  wonderful  merits,  especially  because  it  em- 
bodies the  sensation  of  a  bad  dream;  it  describes  the  feel- 
ing of  nightmare  with  which  everybody  is  familiar.  As 
the  girls  dance,  the  air  seems  to  become  sick  and  strange 
about  them,  and  the  voice  makes  no  sound.  This  is  a 
dream.  Next,  they  can  not  move.  This  again  is  a  dream. 
They  dare  not  look  to  see  what  is  coming,  but  they  hear  it 
come.  It  does  not  touch  them;  but  they  feel  their  friend 
being  silently  pulled  away  from  between  them,  and  can 
not  help  her.  All  this  is  very  faithful  to  the  experience  of 
an  evil  dream.  Indeed,  most  kinds  of  supernatural  fear 
are  believed  to  have  had  their  origin  in  the  experience  of 
sleep. 

Ferguson's  poem  is  perhaps  the  best  minor  work  in  this 
direction,  but  a  greater  poet  than  he  in  some  respects,  Mr. 
Robert  Buchanan,  has  also  produced  a  very  strange  fairy 
poem,  "The  Fairy  Foster-Mother."  This  brings  us  to  a 
new  phase  of  the  superstition. 

It  is  believed  that  occasionally,  when  a  fairy  mother  is  not 
able  to  nourish  her  own  child,  she  will  steal  away  some 


332  SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE 

human  mother  who  has  milk,  and  force  her  to  act  as  foster- 
mother  for  the  fairy  baby.  Mysterious  disappearances  of 
peasant  women  are  sometimes  thus  accounted  for  in  Ire- 
land. Very  possibly  the  woman  has  been  killed,  or  lost  in 
a  bog.  But  the  people  say,  "She  was  taken  by  the  little 
folk  for  a  foster-mother."  Mr.  Buchanan  attempts  to 
imagine  the  feelings  of  the  mother  in  such  a  situation.  His 
poem  is  very  interesting,  but  it  has  not  the  same  kind  of 
value  as  Mr.  Ferguson's,  nor  is  it  put  into  that  dreamy  verse 
which  adds  so  much  to  the  effect  of  "The  Fairy  Thorn."  I 
shall  quote  a  few  lines.  The  poem  is  a  monologue;  the 
mother  is  speaking  to  the  fairy  child. 

Bright  Eyes,  Light  Eyes,  Daughter  of  a  Fay! — 

I  had  not  been  a  wedded  wife  a  twelve-month  and  a  day, 

I  had  not  nursed  my  little  one  a  month  upon  my  knee, 

When  down  among  the  blue-bell  banks  rose  elfins  three  times  three, — 

They  gripped  me  by  the  raven  hair, — I  could  not  cry  for  fear, 

They  put  a  hempen  rope  around  my  waist,  and  dragged  me  here! 

They  made  me  sit  and  give  thee  suck  as  mortal  mothers  can, — 

Bright  Eyes,  Light  Eyes,  strange  and  weak  and  wan. 

Dim  Face,  Grim  Face !  lie  ye  there  so  still  ? 

Thy  red  lips  are  at  my  breast  and  thou  may'st  suck  thy  fill, 

But  know  ye,  tho'  I  hold  thee  firm  and  rock  thee  to  and  fro, 

'Tis  not  to  soothe  thee  into  sleep,  but  just  to  still  my  woe. 

Gold  Hair,  Cold  Hair  !     Daughter  to  a  King ! 

Wrapped  in  bands  of  snow-white  silk  and  jewels  glittering, 

Tiny  slippers  of  the  gold  upon  thy  feet  so  thin, 

Silver  cradle  velvet-lined  for  thee  to  slumber  in, 

Pygmy  pages,  crimson-haired,  to  serve  thee  on  their  knees, 

To  fan  thy  face  with  ferns  and  bring  thee  honey  bags  of  bees — ■ 

I  was  but  a  peasant  lass,  my  babe  had  but  the  milk, 

Gold  Hair!     Cold  Hair,  raimented  in  silk! 

The  weakness  here  is  in  the  human  interest.  Although 
full  of  imagination  and  not  without  art,  this  poem  touches 
neither  our  sense  of  pity  nor  our  sense  of  fear.  But  it  is 
worth  reading,  and  it  illustrates  a  side  of  the  fairy  belief 
very   seldom   touched   upon.     That   is   especially    why   I 


SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE  333 

quoted  from  it.  But  I  had  another  reason.  In  the  first 
stanza  the  fairy  child  is  addressed  as  "Bright  Eyes,"  and 
the  suggestion  is  of  beauty;  in  the  second  stanza  the  child's 
face  is  spoken  of  as  dim,  grim.  This  is  not  a  contradiction; 
the  face  of  the  fairy  child  is  supposed  to  change  suddenly 
and  strangely.  And  because  of  this  supposition  the  horrible 
superstition  about  changelings  once  prevailed  very  exten- 
sively in  all  English-speaking  countries.  What  is  a  change- 
ling? 

One  method  which  the  fairies  had  of  stealing  human  chil- 
dren, according  to  popular  fancy,  was  to  leave  a  fairy  child 
in  place  of  the  human  child.  At  first  the  fairy  child  re- 
sembled the  stolen  child  so  much  that  the  mother  was  de- 
ceived; but  later  on  the  child  would  become  ugly  and  fierce, 
and  show  all  the  dispositions  of  a  goblin.  If  ill-treated,  it 
would  first  revenge  itself  and  then  vanish  away.  Now  you 
all  know  that  during  the  first  six  months  after  birth  the 
face  of  the  little  child  changes  very  curiously,  so  that  you 
hear  the  parents  saying  one  day,  "He  is  like  his  uncle,"  an- 
other day,  "He  is  like  his  grandfather."  In  the  time  when 
people  were  superstitious  in  Europe,  this  changing  of  the 
child's  face  seemed  to  them  supernatural  and  suspicious. 
Many  a  mother  thought  that  her  real  child  had  been  stolen 
and  in  exchange  a  fairy  child  put  in  its  place.  How  was 
she  to  find  out  the  truth?  Only  in  one  way — by  putting 
her  baby  upon  burning  coals  or  burning  wood.  Hundreds 
of  children  were  actually  burned  alive  by  their  own  mothers, 
because  of  this  frightful  fancy.  The  mother  thought  the 
fairy  child  would  disappear,  when  placed  upon  the  fire,  but 
there  was  nothing  supernatural  to  be  seen.  It  is  very  curi- 
ous to  notice  that  this  belief  crossed  over  the  Atlantic  to 
America  with  the  first  English  settlers,  and  the  Puritans  of 
New  England  appear  to  have  been  affected  by  it.  One  tra- 
dition of  the  kind,  preserved  among  the  Quaker  people  of 
New  England  who  fought  bravely  against  superstition,  has 
been  made  the  subject  of  a  very  touching  poem  by  Whittier, 


834  SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE 

entitled  "The  Changeling."  Like  most  of  his  best  works, 
it  is  written  in  the  simplest  quatrains,  and  is  worth  quot- 
ing chiefly  because  of  the  emotional  truth  and  tenderness 
which  it  expresses. 

First  we  are  told  about  the  happy  marriage  of  a  young 
girl  in  the  town  of  Hampton,  and  her  fortunate  choice  of 
a  husband.  She  has  a  little  girl  at  the  end  of  the  year,  and 
at  first  she  is  very  happy  with  the  child.  But  within  an- 
other year  the  superstition  takes  hold  of  her.  She  has  seen 
the  face  of  the  child  change,  and  she  begins  not  only  to 
fear  but  to  hate  it.  She  actually  asks  her  husband  to  pre- 
pare the  fire  upon  which  the  child  is  to  be  placed. 

"It's  never  my  own  little  daughter, 

It's  never  my  own,"  she  said; 
"The  witches  have  stolen  my  Anna 

And  left  me  an  imp  instead. 

"O  fair  and  sweet  was  my  baby, 

Blue  eyes  and  hair  of  gold; 
But  this  is  ugly  and  wrinkled 

Cross,  and  cunning  and  old. 

"I  hate  the  touch  of  her  fingers ! 

I  hate  the  feel  of  her  skin ; 
It's  not  the  milk  from  my  bosom 

But  my  blood,  that  she  sucks  in. 

"My  face  grows  sharp  with  the  torment, 

My  arms  are  skin  and  bone! 
Rake  open  the  red  coals,  good  man : 

And  the  witch  shall  have  her  own." 

For  it  was  thought,  when  the  child  was  put  in  the  fire, 
the  evil  spirit  would  come  to  save  it.  Happily  the  "good 
man"  in  this  case  was  a  man  of  common  sense  and  kind 
heart,  and  he  answers  his  wife's  cruel  wish  by  simply  kneel- 
ing down  and  making  this  touching  prayer  to  the  great  All- 
Father  : 


SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE  335 

"Thy  daughter  is  weak  and  blind, 

Let  her  sight  come  back,  and  clothe  her 
Once  more  in  her  right  mind. 

"Lead  her  out  of  this  evil  shadow, 

Out  of  these  fancies  wild; 
Let  the  holy  love  of  the  mother 

Turn  again  to  her  child. 

"Make  her  lips  like  the  lips  of  Mary 

Kissing  her  blessed  Son  ; 
Let  her  hands,  like  the  hand  of  Jesus, 

Rest  on  her  little  one." 

By  this  method,  kind  and  wise,  of  meeting  the  supersti- 
tious terror,  the  illusion  is  dissipated;  the  mother  soon  be- 
comes shamed  and  horrified  at  her  fear,  on  finding  that  her 
husband  only  considers  it  a  madness  of  the  mind.  This 
poem,  founded  on  fact,  is  followed  by  another  which  is 
well  worth  reading,  called  "Kallundborg  Church."  This 
is  the  story  of  a  man  who,  in  order  to  obtain  a  girl  in  mar- 
riage, makes  a  bargain  with  the  fairies  of  the  ground  to 
build  him  a  church.  The  fairies  agree,  but  on  the  condi- 
tion that  when  the  church  is  finished,  he  must  be  able  to 
tell  the  name  of  the  builder;  otherwise  they  will  take  his 
eyes  and  his  heart  out  of  his  body  in  payment.  Happily 
he  is  saved  by  hearing  the  fairy  wife  of  the  builder  singing  a 
song  in  which  her  husband's  name  is  mentioned.  This  is 
little  more  than  a  translation  of  a  very  famous  Norse  poem 
upon  the  same  subject. 

Even  the  serious  Wordsworth  touched  a  little  upon  fairy 
lore;  you  will  find  a  sonnet  by  him  entitled  "The  Faery 
Chasm."  This  is  not  remarkable  enough  to  quote  here;  I 
mention  it  only  to  show  how  far  the  influence  of  fairy  super- 
stitions colour  the  work  even  of  so  solemn  a  poet  as  he.  All 
the  poets  of  note  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  gave  atten- 
tion to  this  subject.  Scott's  influence,  as  I  said,  was  the 
greatest  of  all  in  making  fairy  literature  fashionable,  in 


SW  SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE 

lifting  it  up  to  the  highest  level  of  romantic  poetry.  He 
did  this  especially  by  collecting  all  the  peasant  songs  and 
legends  that  he  could  find,  writing  them  down  from  the 
lips  of  the  peasants  themselves,  and  afterwards  publishing 
them  in  the  "The  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border." 
Southey  did  much  work  in  the  same  direction.  Shelley  was 
almost  a  fairy  himself;  and  though  in  no  page  in  his  work 
will  you  find  a  real  fairy  poem,  the  spirit  of  all  his  com- 
position is  strongly  coloured  and  ethereal ized  by  the  study 
of  fairy  beliefs.  Keats  produced  the  most  beautiful  orig- 
inal fairy  ballad  of  his  time,  perhaps  the  most  beautiful  of 
all  modem  time,  "La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci."  Even 
Byron  attempted  fairy  stories  in  verse,  but  his  genius  did 
not  lie  in  that  field,  and  his  work  in  that  kind  only  served 
to  show  how  the  spirit  of  Scott  had  affected  him.  Minor 
writers  did  a  great  deal  towards  fairy  literature  during  the 
same  period;  and  Lewis's  "Tales  of  Wonder"  embodied 
much  valuable  research  in  regard  to  fairy  beliefs.  With 
the  new  poetry  of  Tennyson,  and  the  Tennyson  group, 
there  was  a  change,  but  a  change  of  method  rather  than  of 
substance.  Tennyson  himself  has  touched  fairy  topics  with 
extraordinary  skill,  and  all  through  his  idyls,  as  well  as  in 
his  earlier  poems,  you  will  find  evidence  of  the  manner  in 
which  he  comprehended  the  romantic  side  of  fairy  super- 
stition. Rossetti  has  embodied  many  of  the  superstitions 
in  his  extraordinary  work,  for  instance  in  the  story  of  "Rose 
Mary."  Browning  shows  fairy  lights  here  and  there,  and 
very  weird  ones;  perhaps  the  most  notable  example  of  his 
skill  in  this  field  is  the  wonderful  tale  of  the  "Pied  Piper 
of  Hamlin,"  an  old  German  goblin-story,  which  he  put 
into  poetical  form  for  the  sake  of  a  child  friend.  Swin- 
burne has  used  some  fairy  literature  in  imitation  of  the 
Northern  dialect  ballads;  but  one  of  his  most  notable  com- 
positions, "Laus  Veneris,"  though  not  avowedly  what  is 
called  commonly  a  fairy  tale,  really  is  a  fairy  tale,  perhaps 
stranger  and  more  touching  than  all  the  fairy  tales  of  the 


SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE  337 

Middle  Ages.  Then  in  William  Morris's  "Earthly  Para- 
dise" you  will  find  an  immense  collection  of  fairy  legends 
beautifully  told;  and  numerous  other  such  legends  are  scat- 
tered through  other  volumes  of  his,  about  which  I  hope  to 
give  you  a  short  lecture  before  long.  Previously  I  spoke 
to  you  about  what  several  of  the  later  minor  poets,  notably 
Miss  Rossetti,  had  done  in  the  fairy  tale.  You  will  see 
from  such  brief  notes  as  these  how  large  is  still  the  relation 
of  the  fairy  superstitions  to  English  literature.  Even  such 
grave  critics  as  Edmund  Gosse  and  Stopford  Brooke  have 
condescended  to  sing  fairy  songs.  And  perhaps  among 
the  now  living  poets  of  genius  the  best  imitator  of  fairy 
ballads  is  Rudyard  Kipling.  Whenever  Kipling  writes  a 
poem  or  a  ballad,  however,  he  usually  has  a  larger  purpose 
than  at  first  appears,  and  his  "Last  Rhyme  of  True  Thomas" 
deserves  mentioning  here,  not  simply  because  of  its  won- 
derful excellence  as  weird  poetry,  but  because  it  expresses 
the  nobility  and  the  power  of  the  poet  as  a  teacher  and  an 
artist.  It  was  written  when  there  was  some  discussion  about 
calling  Kipling  to  the  laureateship,  which  you  know  was 
given  to  Alfred  Austen,  a  very  low  fourth  or  fifth  class  poet. 
It  then  occurred  to  Kipling  to  express  his  thought  about  that 
matter  in  the  form  of  a  ballad.  A  king  comes  to  make  a 
knight  of  "True  Thomas,"  the  famous  hero  of  many  old 
Scotch  ballads.  But  Thomas  laughs  at  the  offer  of  such  hon- 
our. He  takes  his  fairy  harp  and  sings,  and  the  king  weeps. 
He  plays  again,  and  the  king  laughs.  A  third  time  he  plays, 
and  the  king  wants  to  go  to  war;  a  fourth  time  he  plays, 
and  the  king  becomes  humble  and  gentle  like  a  little  child. 
Then  says  Thomas,  "I  can  make  you  do  whatever  I  wish, 
can  make  you  laugh  or  weep  or  rage  at  my  will;  is  it  not 
ridiculous  for  you  to  talk  about  making  me  a  knight4?"  I 
need  scarcely  explain  the  excellent  irony  concealed  behind 
these  quaint  verses.  Were  they  not  written  in  dialect,  I 
should  like  to  quote  them. 

Now  you  may  be  interested  to  know  that  even  today 


338  SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE 

serious  fairy  dramas  are  written.     Of  course,  on  the  Celtic 
stage  a  great  deal  is  borrowed  from  fairy  tales,  and  operas 
and  the  most  extravagant  of  what  are  called  spectacular 
dramas  are  made  more  interesting  by  the  introduction  of 
fairy  personages  and  fairy  dancers.     The  dark  side  of  the 
belief  is  less  often  dealt  with.     But  the  "Land  of  Heart's 
Desire"  is  the  name  of  a  fairy  drama  recently  composed  by 
William  Butler  Yeats  which  has  been  acted  with  some  suc- 
cess, and  which  is  interesting  as  showing  you  some  new  pos- 
sibilities.    It  is  a  very  short  composition  treating  only  of  a 
single  episode.     A  family  at  night,  seated  about  the  fire, 
are  startled  by  the  entrance  of  a  little  child  who  appears  to 
have  lost  her  way.     In  the  house  there  is  a  priest,  who  at 
once  suspects  that  the  child  is  not  a  human  being.     The 
interest  of  the  whole  action  is  made  to  lie  in  the  way  this 
fairy  child  deludes  priest,  parents,  husband,  and  servants 
successively,  in  order  to  steal  away  the  daughter-in-law,  the 
new  bride.     Though  the  conditions  are  supernatural,  the 
play  of  emotions  is  purely  and  intensely  human  and  thus 
an  impossible  situation  is  made  to  become  intensely  inter- 
esting.    For  example,  the  strange  child  observes  a  crucifix 
upon  the  wall  of  the  room  as  she  enters,  and  she  makes  them 
take  it  way.     The  method  by  which  she  obliges  them  to  take 
it  away,  notwithstanding  their  zealous  belief  in  its  power 
to  protect  them,  is  delightfully  managed. 

C. — What  is  that  ugly  thing  on  the  black  cross  ? 

P. — You  can  not  know  how  naughty  your  words  are!  that  is  our 

Blessed  Lord! 
C. — Hide  it  away. 
P. — That  would  be  wickedness. 
C. — The  tortured  thing ! — hide  it  away. 

This  and  what  follows  is  supremely  natural,  and  we 
are  not  at  all  surprised  when  the  priest  is  eventually  over- 
come by  the  appeal  to  his  human  and  paternal  side.  The 
single  expression  "tortured  thing"  is  here  sufficient  to  show 
the  artist. 


SOME  FAIRY  LITERATURE  339 

You  may  ask  perhaps  why  I  give  so  much  time  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  foreign  superstition  in  foreign  literature.  This 
is  really  worth  while.  I  am  quite  sure  that  it  is,  but  not 
because  the  superstition  happens  to  be  Western.  When 
you  can  judge  of  the  value  that  such  ideas  have  been  to 
European  poetry  and  romance,  you  will  be  better  able  to 
understand  the  possible  future  value  to  your  own  litera- 
ture of  Eastern  beliefs  that  are  now  passing  or  likely  to  pass 
away.  To  an  unimaginative  and  dryly  practical  man  such 
things  are  simply  superstition,  absurd  rubbish.  But  to  the 
true  poet  or  dramatist  or  story-teller  they  are  all,  or  nearly 
all,  of  priceless  value.  The  whole  question  is  or  should  be 
how  to  use  them. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  MOST  BEAUTIFUL  ROMANCE  OF  THE 
MIDDLE  AGES 

The  value  of  romantic  literature,  which  has  been,  so  far 
as  the  Middle  Ages  are  concerned,  unjustly  depreciated, 
does  not  depend  upon  beauty  of  words  or  beauty  of  fact. 
Today  the  immense  debt  of  modern  literature  to  the  litera- 
ture of  the  Middle  Ages  is  better  understood;  and  we  are 
generally  beginning  to  recognize  what  we  owe  to  the  imag- 
ination of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  spite  of  the  ignorance,  the 
superstition  and  the  cruelty  of  that  time.     If  the  evils  of 
the  Middle  Ages  had  really  been  universal,  those  ages  could 
not  have  imparted  to  us  lessons  of  beauty  and  lessons  of 
nobility  having  nothing  to  do  with  literary  form  in  them- 
selves, yet  profoundly  affecting  modern  poetry  of  the  high- 
est class.     No;  there  was  very  much  of  moral  goodness, 
as  well  as  of  moral  badness  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  and  what 
was  good  happened  to  be  very  good  indeed.     Commonly  it 
used  to  be  said   (though  I  do  not  think  any  good  critic 
would  say  it  now)  that  the  fervid  faith  of  the  time  made 
the  moral  beauty.     Unless  we  modify   this   statement   a 
great  deal,  we  cannot  now  accept  it  at  all.     There  was  in- 
deed a  religious  beauty,  particularly  mediaeval,  but  it  was 
not  that  which  created  the  romance  of  the  period.     Indeed, 
that  romantic  literature  was  something  of  a  reaction  against 
the  religious  restraint  upon  imagination.    But  if  we  mean  by 
mediaeval  faith  only  that  which  is  very  much  older  than  any 
European  civilization,  and  which  does  not  belong  to  the 
West  any  more  than  to  the  East — the  profound  belief  in 
human  moral  experience — then  I  think  that  the  statement  is 
true  enough.     At  no  time  in  European  history  were  men 
more  sincere  believers  in  the  value  of  certain  virtues  than 

340 


A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES         341 

during  the  Middle  Ages — and  the  very  best  of  the  romances 
are  just  those  romances  which  illustrate  that  belief,  though 
not  written  for  a  merely  ethical  purpose. 

But  I  cannot  better  illustrate  what  I  mean  than  by  telling 
a  story,  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  Europe  or  the  Middle 
Ages  or  any  particular  form  of  religious  belief.  It  is  not  a 
Christian  story  at  all ;  and  it  could  not  be  told  you  exactly 
as  written,  for  there  are  some  very  curious  pages  in  it.  But 
it  is  a  good  example  of  the  worth  that  may  lie  in  a  mere 
product  of  imagination. 

There  was  a  king  once,  in  Persia  or  Arabia,  who,  at  the 
time  of  his  accession  to  power,  discovered  a  wonderful  sub- 
terranean hall  under  the  garden  of  his  palace.  In  one  cham- 
ber of  that  hall  stood  six  marvellous  statues  of  young  girls, 
each  statue  being  made  out  of  a  single  diamond.  The 
beauty  as  well  as  the  cost  of  the  work  was  beyond  imagina- 
tion. But  in  the  midst  of  the  statues,  which  stood  in  a 
circle,  there  was  an  empty  pedestal,  and  on  that  pedestal 
was  a  precious  casket  containing  a  letter  from  the  dead 
father  of  the  king.     The  letter  said : 

"O  my  son,  though  these  statues  of  girls  are  indeed  be- 
yond all  praise,  there  is  yet  a  seventh  statue  incomparably 
more  precious  and  beautiful  which  I  could  not  obtain  be- 
fore I  died.  It  is  now  your  duty,  O  my  son,  to  obtain  that 
statue,  that  it  may  be  placed  upon  the  seventh  pedestal. 
Go,  therefore,  and  ask  my  favourite  slave,  who  is  still  alive, 
how  you  are  to  obtain  it."  Then  the  young  king  went  in 
all  haste  to  that  old  slave,  who  had  been  his  father's  con- 
fidant, and  showed  him  the  letter.  And  the  old  man  said, 
"Even  now,  O  master,  I  will  go  with  you  to  find  that  statue. 
But  it  is  in  one  of  the  three  islands  in  which  the  genii  dwell; 
and  it  is  necessary,  above  all  things,  that  you  do  not  fear, 
and  that  you  obey  my  instructions  in  all  things.  Also,  re- 
member that  if  you  make  a  promise  to  the  Spirits  of  that 
land,  the  promise  must  be  kept." 

And  they  proceeded  upon  their  journey  through  a  great 


342         A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

wilderness,  in  which  "nothing  existed  but  grass  and  the 
presence  of  God."  I  cannot  try  now  to  tell  you  about  the 
wonderful  things  that  happened  to  them,  nor  about  the  mar- 
vellous boat,  rowed  by  a  boatman  having  upon  his  shoul- 
ders the  head  of  an  elephant.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  at  last 
they  reached  the  palace  of  the  king  of  the  Spirits;  and  the 
king  came  to  meet  them  in  the  form  of  a  beautiful  old  man 
with  a  long  white  beard.  And  he  said  to  the  young  king, 
"My  son,  I  will  gladly  help  you,  as  I  helped  your  father; 
and  I  will  give  you  that  seventh  statue  of  diamond  which 
you  desire.  But  I  must  ask  for  a  gift  in  return.  You  must 
bring  to  me  here  a  young  girl,  of  about  i6«years  old;  and 
she  must  be  very  intelligent ;  and  she  must  be  a  true  maiden, 
not  only  as  to  her  body,  but  as  to  her  soul,  and  heart,  and 
all  her  thoughts."  The  young  king  thought  that  was  a  very 
easy  thing  to  find,  but  the  king  of  the  Spirits  assured  him 
that  it  was  not,  and  further  told  him  this,  "My  son,  no 
mortal  man  is  wise  enough  to  know  by  his  own  wisdom  the 
purity  that  is  in  the  heart  of  a  young  girl.  Only  by  the 
help  of  this  magical  mirror,  which  I  now  lend  you,  will  you 
be  able  to  know.  Look  at  the  reflection  of  any  maiden  in 
this  mirror,  and  then,  if  her  heart  is  perfectly  good  and 
pure,  the  mirror  will  remain  bright.  But  if  there  be  any 
fault  in  her,  the  mirror  will  grow  dim.  Go  now,  and  do 
my  bidding." 

You  can  imagine,  of  course,  what  happened  next.  Re- 
turning to  his  kingdom,  the  young  king  had  brought  before 
him  many  beautiful  girls,  the  daughters  of  the  noblest  and 
highest  in  all  the  cities  of  the  land.  But  in  no  case  did 
the  mirror  remain  perfectly  clear  when  the  ghostly  test 
was  applied.  For  three  years  in  vain  the  king  sought; 
then  in  despair  he  for  the  first  time  turned  his  attention 
to  the  common  people.  And  there  came  before  him  on 
the  very  first  day,  a  rude  man  of  the  desert,  who  said,  "I 
know  of  just  such  a  girl  as  you  want."  Then  he  went  forth 
and  presently  returned  with  a  simple  girl  from  the  desert, 


A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  343 

who  had  been  brought  up  in  the  care  of  her  father  only,  and 
had  lived  with  no  other  companion  than  the  members  of 
her  own  family  and  the  camels  and  horses  of  the  encamp- 
ment. And  as  she  stood  in  her  poor  dress  before  the  king, 
he  saw  that  she  was  much  more  beautiful  than  any  one  whom 
he  had  seen  before;  and  he  questioned  her,  only  to  find 
that  she  was  very  intelligent;  and  she  was  not  at  all  afraid 
or  ashamed  of  standing  before  the  king,  but  looked  about 
her  with  large  wondering  eyes,  like  the  eyes  of  a  child;  and 
whoever  met  that  innocent  gaze,  felt  a  great  joy  in  his  heart, 
and  could  not  tell  why.  And  when  the  king  had  the  mirror 
brought,  and  the  reflection  of  the  girl  was  thrown  upon 
it,  the  mirror  became  much  brighter  than  before,  and  shone 
like  a  great  moon. 

There  was  the  maid  whom  the  Spirit-king  wished  for. 
The  king  easily  obtained  her  from  her  parents;  but  he  did 
not  tell  her  what  he  intended  to  do  with  her.  Now  it  was 
his  duty  to  give  her  to  the  Spirits;  but  there  was  a  condi- 
tion he  found  very  hard  to  fulfil.  By  the  terms  of  his 
promise  he  was  not  allowed  to  kiss  her,  to  caress  her,  or  even 
to  see  her,  except  veiled  after  the  manner  of  the  country. 
Only  by  the  mirror  had  he  been  able  to  know  how  fair  she 
was.  And  the  voyage  was  long;  and  on  the  way,  the  girl, 
who  thought  she  was  going  to  be  this  king's  bride,  became 
sincerely  attached  to  him,  after  the  manner  of  a  child  with 
a  brother;  and  he  also  in  his  heart  became  much  attached 
to  her.  But  it  was  his  duty  to  give  her  up.  At  last  they 
reached  the  palace  of  the  Spirit-king;  and  the  figure  of  the 
old  man  came  forth  and  said,  "My  son,  you  have  done  well 
and  kept  your  promise.  This  maiden  is  all  that  I  could 
have  wished  for;  and  I  accept  her.  Now  when  you  go 
back  to  your  palace,  you  will  find  on  the  seventh  pedestal 
the  statue  of  the  diamond  which  your  father  desired  you  to 
obtain."  And,  with  these  words,  the  Spirit-king  vanished, 
taking  with  him  the  girl,  who  uttered  a  great  and  piercing 
cry  to  heaven  at  having  been  thus  deceived.     Very  sorrow- 


344  A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

fully  the  young  king  then  began  his  journey  home.  All 
along  the  way  he  kept  regretting  that  girl,  and  regretting 
the  cruelty  which  he  had  practised  in  deceiving  her  and  her 
parents.  And  he  began  to  say  to  himself,  "Accursed  be  the 
gift  of  the  king  of  the  Spirits !  Of  what  worth  to  me  is  a 
woman  of  diamond  any  more  than  a  woman  of  stone? 
What  is  there  in  all  the  world  half  so  beautiful  or  half  so 
precious  as  a  living  girl  such  as  I  discovered1?  Fool  that  I 
was  to  give  her  up  for  the  sake  of  a  statue !"  But  he  tried 
to  console  himself  by  remembering  that  he  had  obeyed  his 
dead  father's  wish. 

Still,  he  could  not  console  himself.  Reaching  his  palace, 
he  went  to  his  secret  chamber  to  weep  alone,  and  he  wept 
night  and  day,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  his  ministers  to  com- 
fort him.  But  at  last  one  of  them  said,  "O  my  king,  in  the 
hall  beneath  your  garden  there  has  appeared  a  wonderful 
statue  upon  the  seventh  pedestal ;  perchance  if  you  go  to  see 
it,  your  heart  will  become  more  joyful." 

Then  with  great  reluctance  the  king  properly  dressed  him- 
self, and  went  to  the  subterranean  hall. 

There  indeed  was  the  statue,  the  gift  of  the  Spirit-king; 
and  very  beautiful  it  was.  But  it  was  not  made  of  dia- 
mond, and  it  looked  so  strangely  like  the  girl  whom  he  had 
lost,  that  the  king's  heart  leapt  in  his  breast  for  astonish- 
ment. He  put  out  his  hand  and  touched  the  statue,  and 
found  it  warm  with  life  and  youth.  And  a  sweet  voice 
said  to  him,  "Yes,  it  is  really  I — have  you  forgotten*?" 

Thus  she  was  given  back  to  him;  and  the  Spirit-king 
came  to  their  wedding,  and  thus  addressed  the  bridegroom, 
"O  my  son,  for  your  dead  father's  sake  I  did  this  thing. 
For  it  was  meant  to  teach  you  that  the  worth  of  a  really 
pure  and  perfect  woman  is  more  than  the  price  of  any 
diamond  or  any  treasure  that  the  earth  can  yield." 

Now  you  can  see  at  once  the  beauty  of  this  story;  and 
the  moral  of  it  is  exactly  the  same  as  that  of  the  famous 
verse,  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  "Who  can  find  a  virtuous 


A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  345 

woman?  for  her  price  is  far  above  rubies."  But  it  is  simply 
a  story  from  the  "Arabian  Nights" — one  of  those  stories 
which  you  will  not  find  in  the  ordinary  European  transla- 
tions, because  it  is  written  in  such  a  way  that  no  English 
translator  except  Burton  would  have  dared  to  translate  it 
quite  literally.  The  obscenity  of  parts  of  the  original  does 
not  really  detract  in  the  least  from  the  beauty  and  tender- 
ness of  the  motive  of  the  story;  and  we  must  remember  that 
what  we  call  moral  or  immoral  in  style  depends  very  much 
upon  the  fashion  of  an  age  and  time. 

Now  it  is  exactly  the  same  kind  of  moral  charm  that  dis- 
tinguishes the  best  of  the  old  English  romances — a  charm 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  style,  but  everything  to 
do  with  the  feeling  and  suggestion  of  the  composition.  But 
in  some  of  the  old  romances,  the  style  too  has  a  very  great 
charm  of  quaintness  and  simplicity  and  sincerity  not  to  be 
imitated  today.  In  this  respect  the  older  French  romances, 
from  which  the  English  made  their  renderings,  are  much  the 
best.  And  the  best  of  all  is  said  to  be  "Amis  and  Amiles," 
which  the  English  rendered  as  "Amicus  and  Amelius." 
Something  of  the  story  ought  to  interest  you. 

The  whole  subject  of  this  romance  is  the  virtue  of  friend- 
ship, though  this  of  course  involves  a  number  of  other  vir- 
tues quite  as  distinguished.  Amis  and  Amiles,  that  is  to 
say  Amicus  and  Amelius,  are  two  young  knights  who  at 
the  beginning  of  their  career  become  profoundly  attached 
to  each  other.  Not  content  with  the  duties  of  this  natural 
affection,  they  imposed  upon  themselves  all  the  duties 
which  chivalry  also  attached  to  the  office  of  friend.  The 
romance  tells  of  how  they  triumph  over  every  conceivable 
test  to  which  their  friendship  was  subjected.  Often  and 
often  the  witchcraft  of  woman  worked  to  separate  them, 
but  could  not.  Both  married,  yet  after  marriage  their 
friendship  was  just  as  strong  as  before.  Each  has  to  fight 
many  times  on  account  of  the  other,  and  suffer  all  things 
which  it  is  most  hard  for  a  proud  and  brave  man  to  bear. 


346  A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

But  everything  is  suffered  cheerfully,  and  the  friends  are 
such  true  knights  that,  in  all  their  trials,  neither  does  any- 
thing wrong,  or  commits  the  slightest  fault  against  truth — 
until  a  certain  sad  day.  On  that  day  it  is  the  duty  of  Amis 
to  fight  in  a  trial  by  battle.  But  he  is  sick,  and  cannot  fight ; 
then  to  save  his  honour  his  friend  Amelius  puts  on  the 
armour  and  helmet  of  Amis,  and  so  pretending  to  be  Amis, 
goes  to  the  meeting  place,  and  wins  the  fight  gloriously. 
But  this  was  an  act  of  untruthfulness;  he  had  gone  into 
battle  under  a  false  name,  and  to  do  anything  false  even  for 
a  good  motive  is  bad.  So  heaven  punishes  him  by  afflicting 
him  with  the  horrible  disease  of  leprosy. 

The  conditions  of  leprosy  in  the  Middle  Ages  were  of  a 
peculiar  kind.  The  disease  seems  to  have  been  intro- 
duced into  Europe  from  Asia — perhaps  by  the  Crusaders. 
Michelet  suggests  that  it  may  have  resulted  from  the  Euro- 
pean want  of  cleanliness,  brought  about  by  ascetic  teach- 
ings— for  the  old  Greek  and  Roman  public  bath-houses  were 
held  in  horror  by  the  mediaeval  church.  But  this  is  not  at 
all  certain.  What  is  certain  is  that  in  the  thirteenth,  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries  leprosy  became  very  preva- 
lent. The  disease  was  not  then  at  all  understood;  it  was 
supposed  to  be  extremely  contagious,  and  the  man  afflicted 
by  it  was  immediately  separated  from  society,  and  not  al- 
lowed to  live  in  any  community  under  such  conditions  as 
could  bring  him  into  contact  with  other  inhabitants.  His 
wife  or  children  could  accompany  him  only  on  the  terrible 
condition  of  being  considered  lepers.  Every  leper  wore  a 
kind  of  monk's  dress,  with  a  hood  covering  the  face;  and 
he  had  to  carry  a  bell  and  ring  it  constantly  to  give  notice 
of  his  approach.  Special  leper-houses  were  built  near  every 
town,  where  such  unfortunates  might  obtain  accommodation. 
They  were  allowed  to  beg,  but  it  was  considered  dangerous 
to  go  very  near  them,  so  that  in  most  cases  alms  or  food 
would  be  thrown  to  them  only,  instead  of  being  put  into 
their  hands. 


A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  347 

Now  when  the  victim  of  leprosy  in  this  romance  is  first 
afflicted  by  the  disease,  he  happens  to  be  far  away  from  his 
good  friend.  And  none  of  his  own  family  is  willing  to 
help  him;  he  is  regarded  with  superstitious  as  well  as  with 
physical  horror.  There  is  nothing  left  for  him  to  do  but 
to  yield  up  his  knighthood  and  his  welfare  and  his  family, 
to  put  on  the  leper's  robe,  and  to  go  begging  along  the  roads, 
carrying  a  leper's  bell.  And  this  he  does.  For  long,  long 
months  he  goes  begging  from  town  to  town,  till  at  last, 
by  mere  chance,  he  finds  his  way  to  the  gate  of  the  great 
castle  where  his  good  friend  is  living — now  a  great  prince, 
and  married  to  the  daughter  of  the  king.  And  he  asks  at 
the  castle  gate  for  charity  and  for  food. 

Now  the  porter  at  the  gate  observes  that  the  leper  has  a 
very  beautiful  cup,  exactly  resembling  a  drinking  cup  be- 
longing to  his  master,  and  he  thinks  it  his  duty  to  tell  these 
things  to  the  lord  of  the  castle.  And  the  lord  of  the  castle 
remembers  that  very  long  ago  he  and  his  friend  each  had 
a  cup  of  this  kind,  given  to  them  by  the  bishop  of  Rome. 
So,  hearing  the  porter's  story,  he  knew  that  the  leper  at 
the  gate  was  the  friend  who  "had  delivered  him  from  death, 
and  won  for  him  the  daughter  of  the  King  of  France  to 
be  his  wife."  Here  I  had  better  quote  from  the  French 
version  of  the  story,  in  which  the  names  of  the  friends  are 
changed,  but  without  changing  the  beauty  of  the  tale  itself: 

"And  straightway  he  fell  upon  him,  and  began  to  weep 
greatly,  and  kissed  him.  And  when  his  wife  heard  that, 
she  ran  out  with  her  hair  in  disarray,  weeping  and  distressed 
exceedingly — for  she  remembered  that  it  was  he  who  had 
slain  the  false  Andres.  And  thereupon  they  placed  him  in 
a  fair  cell,  and  said  to  him,  'Abide  with  us  until  God's 
will  be  accomplished  in  thee,  for  all  that  we  have  is  at 
thy  service.'     So  he  abode  with  them." 

You  must  understand,  by  the  allusion  to  "God's  will," 
that  leprosy  was  in  the  Middle  Ages  really  considered  to 
be  a  punishment  from  heaven — so  that  in  taking  a  leper 


348  A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

into  his  castle,  the  good  friend  was  not  only  offending 
against  the  law  of  the  land,  but  risking  celestial  punishment 
as  well,  according  to  the  notions  of  that  age.  His  charity, 
therefore,  was  true  charity  indeed,  and  his  friendship  with- 
out fear.  But  it  was  going  to  be  put  to  a  test  more  terrible 
than  any  ever  endured  before.  To  comprehend  what  fol- 
lowed, you  must  know  that  there  was  one  horrible  super- 
stition of  the  Middle  Ages — the  belief  that  by  bathing  in 
human  blood  the  disease  of  leprosy  might  be  cured.  Mur- 
ders were  often  committed  under  the  influence  of  that  super- 
stition. I  believe  you  will  remember  that  the  "Golden 
Legend"  of  Longfellow  is  founded  upon  a  mediaeval  story 
in  which  a  young  girl  voluntarily  offers  up  her  life  in  order 
that  her  blood  may  cure  the  leprosy  of  her  king.  In  the 
present  romance  there  is  much  more  tragedy.  One  night 
while  sleeping  in  his  friend's  castle,  the  leper  was  awakened 
by  an  angel  from  God — Raphael — who  said  to  him: 

"I  am  Raphael,  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  and  I  am  come 
to  tell  thee  how  thou  mayst  be  healed.  Thou  shalt  bid 
Amiles  thy  comrade  to  slay  his  two  children  and  wash  thee 
in  their  blood,  and  so  thy  body  shall  be  made  whole."  And 
Amis  said  to  him,  "Let  not  this  thing  be,  that  my  comrade 
should  become  a  murderer  for  my  sake."  But  the  angel 
said,  "It  is  convenient  that  he  do  this."  And  thereupon  the 
angel  departed. 

The  phrase,  "it  is  convenient,"  must  be  understood  as 
meaning,  "it  is  ordered."  For  the  mediaeval  lord  used 
such  gentle  expressions  when  issuing  his  commands;  and 
the  angel  talked  like  a  feudal  messenger.  But  in  spite  of 
the  command,  the  sick  man  does  not  tell  his  friend  about 
the  angel's  visit,  until  Amelius,  who  has  overheard  the  voice, 
forces  him  to  acknowledge  whom  he  had  been  talking  with 
during  the  night.  And  the  emotion  of  the  lord  may  be 
imagined,  though  he  utters  it  only  in  the  following  gentle 
words — "And  Amelius  says,  I  would  have  given  to  thee  my 
man  servants  and  my  maid  servants  and  all  my  goods — and 


A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  349 

thou  feignest  that  an  angel  hath  spoken  to  thee  that  I  should 
slay  my  two  children.  But  I  conjure  thee  by  the  faith 
which  there  is  between  me  and  thee,  and  by  our  comrade- 
ship, and  by  the  baptism  we  received  together,  that  thou 
tell  me  whether  it  was  man  or  angel  said  that  to  thee." 

Amis  declares  that  it  was  really  an  angel,  and  Amelius 
never  thinks  of  doubting  his  friend's  word.  It  would  be 
a  pity  to  tell  you  the  sequel  in  my  own  words;  let  me  quote 
again  from  the  text,  translated  by  Walter  Pater.  I  think 
you  will  find  it  beautiful  and  touching: 

"Then  Amelius  began  to  weep  in  secret,  and  thought 
within  himself,  'If  this  man  was  ready  to  die  for  me,  shall 
I  not  for  him  slay  my  children?  Shall  I  not  keep  faith 
with  him  who  was  faithful  unto  death?'  And  Amelius 
tarried  no  longer,  but  departed  to  the  chamber  of  his  wife, 
and  bade  her  into  the  secret  office.  And  he  took  a  sword, 
and  went  to  the  bed  where  the  children  were  lying,  and 
found  them  asleep.  And  he  lay  down  over  them  and  began 
to  weep  bitterly  and  said,  'Has  any  man  yet  heard  of  a 
father  who  of  his  own  will  slew  his  own  children?  Alas, 
my  children!  I  am  no  longer  your  father,  but  your  cruel 
murderer.' 

"And  the  children  awoke  at  the  tears  of  their  father 
which  fell  upon  them;  and  they  looked  up  into  his  face  and 
began  to  laugh.  And  as  they  were  of  age  about  three  years, 
he  said,  'Your  laughing  will  be  turned  into  tears,  for  your 
innocent  blood  must  now  be  shed';  and  therewith  he  cut 
off  their  heads.  Then  he  laid  them  as  though  they  were 
sleeping;  and  with  the  blood  which  he  had  taken  he  washed 
his  comrade,  and  said,  'Lord  Jesus  Christ !  who  hast  com- 
manded men  to  keep  faith  on  earth,  and  didst  heal  the 
leper  by  Thy  word !  cleanse  now  my  comrade,  for  whose 
love  I  have  shed  the  blood  of  my  children.'  "  And  of 
course  the  leper  is  immediately  and  completely  cured.  But 
the  mother  did  not  know  anything  about  the  killing  of  the 
children;  we  have  to  hear  something  about  her  share  in 


350         A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

the  tragedy.  Let  me  again  quote,  this  time  giving  the  real 
and  very  beautiful  conclusion — 

"Now  neither  the  father  nor  the  mother  had  yet  entered 
where  the  children  were,  but  the  father  sighed  heavily  be- 
cause of  their  death,  and  the  mother  asked  for  them,  that 
they  might  rejoice  together;  but  Amelius  said,  'Dame!  let 
the  children  sleep.'  And  it  was  already  the  hour  of  tiers. 
And  going  in  alone  to  the  children  to  weep  over  them,  he 
found  them  at  play  in  the  bed;  only  in  the  place  of  the 
sword-cuts  about  their  throats  was,  as  it  were,  a  thread  of 
crimson.  And  he  took  them  in  his  arms  and  carried  them 
to  his  wife  and  said,  'Rejoice  greatly!  For  thy  children 
whom  I  had  slain  by  the  commandment  of  the  angel,  are 
alive,  and  by  their  blood  is  Amis  healed.'  " 

I  think  you  will  all  see  how  fine  a  story  this  is,  and  feel  the 
emotional  force  of  the  grand  moral  idea  behind  it.  There 
is  nothing  more  to  tell  you,  except  the  curious  fact  that 
during  the  Middle  Ages,  when  it  was  believed  that  the  story 
was  really  true,  Amis  and  Amiles — or  Amicus  and  Amelius 
— were  actually  considered  by  the  Church  as  saints,  and 
people  used  to  pray  to  them.  When  anybody  was  anxious 
for  his  friend,  or  feared  that  he  might  lose  the  love  of  his 
friend,  or  was  afraid  that  he  might  not  have  strength  to 
perform  his  duty  as  friend — then  he  would  go  to  church 
to  implore  help  from  the  good  saints  Amicus  and  Amelius. 
But  of  course  it  was  all  a  mistake — a  mistake  which  lasted 
until  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century!  Then  somebody 
called  the  attention  of  the  Church  to  the  unmistakable  fact 
that  Amicus  and  Amelius  were  merely  inventions  of  some 
mediaeval  romancer.  Then  the  Church  made  investigation, 
and  greatly  shocked,  withdrew  from  the  list  of  its  saints 
those  long-loved  names  of  Amicus  and  Amelius — a  reform 
in  which  I  cannot  help  thinking  the  Church  made  a  very 
serious  mistake.  What  matter  whether  those  shadowy  fig- 
ures represented  original  human  lives  or  only  human  dreams'? 
They  were  beautiful,  and  belief  in  them  made  men  think 


A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  351 

beautiful  thoughts,  and  the  imagined  help  from  them  had 
comforted  many  thousands  of  hearts.  It  would  have  been 
better  to  have  left  them  alone ;  for  that  matter,  how  many  of 
the  existent  lives  of  saints  are  really  true1?  Nevertheless  the 
friends  are  not  dead,  though  expelled  from  the  heaven  of 
the  church.  They  still  live  in  romance;  and  everybody  who 
reads  about  them  feels  a  little  better  for  their  acquaintance. 
What  I  read  to  you  was  from  the  French  version — that 
is  much  the  more  beautiful  of  the  two.  You  will  find 
some  extracts  from  the  English  version  in  the  pages  of  Ten 
Brink.  But  as  that  great  German  scholar  pointed  out,  the 
English  story  is  much  rougher  than  the  French.  For  ex- 
ample, in  the  English  story,  the  knight  rushes  out  of  his 
castle  to  beat  the  leper  at  the  gate,  and  to  accuse  him  of 
having  stolen  the  cup.  And  he  does  beat  him  ferociously, 
and  abuses  him  with  very  violent  terms.  In  fact,  the  Eng- 
lish writer  reflected  too  much  of  mediaeval  English  charac- 
ter, in  trying  to  cover,  or  to  improve  upon,  the  French  story, 
which  was  the  first.  In  the  French  story  all  is  knightly 
smooth,  refined  as  well  as  simple  and  strong.  And  where 
did  the  mediaeval  imagination  get  its  material  for  the  story*? 
Partly,  perhaps,  from  the  story  of  Joseph  in  the  Bible, 
partly  from  the  story  of  Abraham;  but  the  scriptural  ma- 
terial is  so  admirably  worked  over  that  the  whole  thing 
appears  deliciously  original.  That  was  the  great  art  of 
the  Middle  Ages — to  make  old,  old  things  quite  new  by  the 
magic  of  spiritual  imagination.  Men  then  lived  in  a  world 
of  dreams.  And  that  world  still  attracts  us,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  happiness  chiefly  consists  in  dreams.  Exact 
science  may  help  us  a  great  deal,  no  doubt,  but  mathe- 
matics do  not  make  us  any  happier.  Dreams  do,  if  we  can 
believe  them.  The  Middle  Ages  could  believe  them;  we, 
at  the  best,  can  only  try. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
IONIC  A 

I  am  going  now  to  talk  about  a  very  rare  kind  of  poetry 
in  a  very  rare  little  book,  like  fine  wine  in  a  small  and 
precious  flask.     The  author  never  put  his  name  to  the  book 
— indeed  for  many  years  it  was  not  known  who  wrote  the 
volume.     We  now   know   that  the   author   was   a  school 
teacher  called  William  Johnson  who,  later  in  life,  coming 
into  a  small  fortune,  changed  his  name  to  William  Cory. 
He  was  born  sometime  about  1823,  and  died  in  1892.     He 
was,  I  believe,  an  Oxford  man  and  was  assistant  master  of 
Eton  College  for  a  number  of  years.     Judging  from  his 
poems,  he  must  have  found  pleasure  in  his  profession  as 
well  as  pain.     There  is  a  strange  sadness  nearly  always, 
but  this  sadness  is  mixed  with  expressions  of  love  for  the 
educational  establishment  which  he  directed,   and  for  the 
students  whose  minds  he  helped  to  form.     He  must  have 
been  otherwise  a  very  shy  man.     Scarcely  anything  seems 
to  be  known  about  him  after  his  departure  from  educational 
circles,  although  everybody  of  taste  now  knows  his  poems. 
I  wish  to  speak  of  them  because  I  think  that  literary  gradu- 
ates of  this  university  ought  to  be  at  least  familiar  with 
the  name  "Ionica."     At  all  events  you  should  know  some- 
thing about  the  man  and  about  the  best  of  his  poems.     If 
you  should  ask  why  so  little  has  yet  been  said  about  him 
in  books  on  English  literature,  I  would  answer  that  in  the 
first  place  he  was  a  very  small  poet  writing  in  the  time  of 
giants,  having  for  competitors  Tennyson,   Browning  and 
others.     He  could  scarcely  make  his  small  pipe  heard  in  the 
thunder  of  those  great  organ  tones.     In  the  second  place  his 
verses  were  never  written  to  please  the  public  at  all.     They 
were  written  only  for  fine  scholars,  and  even  the  titles  of 

352 


IONICA  353 

many  of  them  cannot  be  explained  by  a  person  devoid  of 
some  Greek  culture.  So  the  little  book,  which  appeared 
quite  early  in  the  Victorian  Age,  was  soon  forgotten.  Being 
forgotten  it  ran  out  of  print  and  disappeared.  Then  some- 
body remembered  that  it  had  existed.  I  have  told  you  that 
it  was  like  the  tone  of  a  little  pipe  or  flute  as  compared 
with  the  organ  music  of  the  larger  poets.  But  the  little 
pipe  happened  to  be  a  Greek  pipe — the  melody  was  very 
sweet  and  very  strange  and  old,  and  people  who  had  heard 
it  once  soon  wanted  to  hear  it  again.  But  they  could  not 
get  it.  Copies  of  the  first  edition  fetched  extraordinary 
sums.  Some  few  years  ago  a  new  edition  appeared,  but 
this  too  is  now  out  of  print  and  is  fetching  fancy  prices. 
However,  you  must  not  expect  anything  too  wonderful  from 
this  way  of  introducing  the  subject.  The  facts  only  show 
that  the  poems  are  liked  by  persons  of  refinement  and 
wealth.  I  hope  to  make  you  like  some  of  them,  but  the 
difficulties  of  so  doing  are  considerable,  because  of  the  ex- 
tremely English  character  of  some  pieces  and  the  extremely 
Greek  tone  of  others.  There  is  also  some  uneven  work. 
The  poet  is  not  in  all  cases  successful.  Sometimes  he  tried 
to  write  society  verse,  and  his  society  verse  must  be  con- 
sidered a  failure.  The  best  pieces  are  his  Greek  pieces  and 
some  compositions  on  love  subjects  of  a  most  delicate  and 
bewitching  kind. 

Of  course  the  very  name  "Ionica"  suggests  Greek  work, 
a  collection  of  pieces  in  Ionic  style.  But  you  must  not 
think  that  this  means  only  repetitions  of  ancient  subjects. 
This  author  brings  the  Greek  feeling  back  again  into  the 
very  heart  of  English  life  sometimes,  or  makes  an  English 
fact  illustrate  a  Greek  fable.  Some  delightful  translations 
from  the  Greek  there  are,  but  less  than  half  a  dozen  in  all. 

I  scarcely  know  how  to  begin — what  piece  to  quote  first. 
But  perhaps  the  little  fancy  called  "Mimnermus  in  Church" 
is  the  best  known,  and  the  one  which  will  best  serve  to 
introduce  us  to  the  character  of  Cory.     Before  quoting  it, 


354  IONICA 

however,  I  must  explain  the  title  briefly.  Mimnermus  was 
an  old  Greek  philosopher  and  poet  who  thought  that  all 
things  in  the  world  are  temporary,  that  all  hope  of  a  future 
life  is  vain,  that  there  is  nothing  worth  existing  for  except 
love,  and  that  without  affection  one  were  better  dead. 
There  are,  no  doubt,  various  modern  thinkers  who  tell  you 
much  the  same  thing,  and  this  little  poem  exhibits  such 
modern  feeling  in  a  Greek  dress.  I  mean  that  we  have 
here  a  picture  of  a  young  man,  a  young  English  scholar, 
listening  in  Church  to  Christian  teaching,  but  answering 
that  teaching  with  the  thought  of  the  old  Greeks.  There 
is  of  course  one  slight  difference ;  the  modern  conception  of 
love  is  perhaps  a  little  wider  in  range  than  that  of  the  old 
Greeks.     There  is  more  of  the  ideal  in  it. 

MIMNERMUS    IN    CHURCH 

You  promise  Heavens  free  from  strife, 
Pure  truth,  and  perfect  change  of  will, 
But  sweet,  sweet  is  this  human  life, 
So  sweet,  I  fain  would  breathe  it  still ; 
Your  chilly  stars  I  can  forego, 
This  warm  kind  world  is  all  I  know. 

You  say  there  is  no  substance  here, 
One  great  reality  above : 
Back  from  that  void  I  shrink  in  fear 
And  child-like  hide  myself  in  love ; 
Show  me  what  angels  feel,  till  then 
I  cling,  a  mere  weak  man,  to  men. 

You  bid  me  lift  my  mean  desires 
From  faltering  lips  and  fitful  veins 
To  sexless  souls,  ideal  choirs, 
Unwearied  voices,  wordless  strains; 
My  mind  with  fonder  welcome  owns 
One  dear  dead  friend's  remembered  tones. 

Forsooth  the  present  we  must  give 
To  that  which  cannot  pass  away ; 


IONICA  355 

All  beauteous  things  for  which  we  live 
By  laws  of  time  and  space  decay. 
But  Oh,  the  very  reason  why 
I  clasp  them,  is  because  they  die. 

The  preacher  has  been  talking  to  his  congregation  about 
the  joys  of  Heaven.  There,  he  says,  there  will  be  no  quar- 
relling, no  contest,  no  falsehood,  and  all  evil  dispositions 
will  be  entirely  changed  to  good.  The  poet  answers,  "This 
world  and  this  life  are  full  of  beauty  and  of  joy  for  me. 
I  do  not  want  to  die,  I  want  to  live.  I  do  not  wish  to  go 
to  that  cold  region  of  stars  about  which  you  teach.  I  only 
know  this  world  and  I  find  in  it  warm  hearts  and  precious 
affection.  You  say  that  this  world  is  a  phantom,  unsub- 
stantial, unreal,  and  that  the  only  reality  is  above,  in 
Heaven.  To  me  that  Heaven  appears  but  as  an  awful 
emptiness.  I  shrink  from  it  in  terror,  and  like  a  child  seek 
for  consolation  in  human  love.  It  is  no  use  to  talk  to  me 
about  angels  until  you  can  prove  to  me  that  angels  can 
feel  happier  than  men.  I  prefer  to  remain  with  human 
beings.  You  say  that  I  ought  to  wish  for  higher  things 
than  this  world  can  give,  that  here  minds  are  unsteady  and 
weak,  hearts  fickle  and  selfish,  and  you  talk  of  souls  without 
sex,  imaginary  concerts  of  perfect  music,  tireless  singing  in 
Heaven,  and  the  pleasure  of  conversation  without  speech. 
But  all  the  happiness  that  we  know  is  received  from  our 
fellow  beings.  I  remember  the  voice  of  one  dead  friend 
with  deeper  love  and  pleasure  than  any  images  of  Heaven 
could  ever  excite  in  my  mind." 

The  last  stanza  needs  no  paraphrasing,  but  it  deserves 
some  comment,  for  it  is  the  expression  of  one  great  difference 
between  the  old  Greek  feeling  in  regard  to  life  and  death, 
and  all  modern  religious  feeling  on  the  same  subject.  You 
can  read  through  hundreds  of  beautiful  inscriptions  which 
were  placed  over  the  Greek  tombs.  They  are  contained  in 
the  "Greek  Anthology."     You  will  find  there  almost  noth- 


356  IONICA 

ing  about  hope  of  a  future  life,  or  about  Heaven.  They 
are  not  for  the  most  part  sad;  they  are  actually  joyous  in 
many  cases.  You  would  say  that  the  Greek  mind  thought 
thus  about  death — "I  have  had  my  share  of  the  beauty  and 
the  love  of  this  world,  and  I  am  grateful  for  this  enjoyment, 
and  now  it  is  time  to  go  to  sleep."  There  is  actually  an 
inscription  to  the  effect,  "I  have  supped  well  of  the  banquet 
of  life."  The  Eastern  religions,  including  Christianity, 
taught  that  because  everything  in  the  world  is  uncertain, 
impermanent,  perishable,  therefore  we  ought  not  to  allow 
our  minds  to  love  worldly  things.  But  the  Greek  mind, 
as  expressed  by  the  old  epigraphy  in  the  cemeteries,  not 
less  than  by  the  teaching  of  Mimnermus,  took  exactly  the 
opposite  view.  "O  children  of  men,  it  is  because  beauty 
and  pleasure  and  love  and  light  can  last  only  for  a  little 
while,  it  is  exactly  because  of  this  that  you  should  love 
them.  Why  refuse  to  enjoy  the  present  because  it  can  not 
last  for  ever4?"  And  at  a  much  later  day  the  Persian  poet 
Omar  took,  you  will  remember,  precisely  the  same  view. 
You  need  not  think  that  it  would  be  wise  to  accept  such 
teaching  for  a  rule  of  life,  but  it  has  a  certain  value  as  a 
balance  to  the  other  extreme  view,  that  we  should  make 
ourselves  miserable  in  this  world  with  the  idea  of  being 
rewarded  in  another,  concerning  which  we  have  no  positive 
knowledge.  The  lines  with  which  the  poem  concludes  at 
least  deserve  to  be  thought  about — 

"But  Oh,  the  very  reason  why 
I  clasp  them,  is  because  they  die." 

We  shall  later  on  take  some  of  the  purely  Greek  work 
of  Cory  for  study,  but  I  want  now  to  interest  you  in  the 
more  modern  part  of  it.  The  charm  of  the  following 
passage  you  will  better  feel  by  remembering  that  the  writer 
was  then  a  schoolmaster  at  Eton,  and  that  the  verses  par- 
ticularly express  the  love  which  he  felt  for  his  students — 


IONICA  357 

a  love  the  more  profound,  perhaps,  because  the  circum- 
stances of  the  teacher's  position  obliged  him  to  appear  cold 
and  severe,  obliged  him  to  suppress  natural  impulses  of 
affection  and  generosity.  The  discipline  of  the  masters  in 
English  public  schools  is  much  more  severe  than  the  dis- 
cipline to  which  the  students  are  subjected.  The  boys 
enjoy  a  great  deal  of  liberty.  The  masters  may  be  said 
to  have  none.  Yet  there  are  men  so  constituted  that  they 
learn  to  greatly  love  the  profession.  The  title  of  this  poem 
is  "Reparabo,"  which  means  "I  will  atone." 

The  world  will  rob  me  of  my  friends, 
For  time  with  her  conspires ; 
But  they  shall  both,  to  make  amends, 
Relight  my  slumbering  fires. 

For  while  my  comrades  pass  away 
To  bow  and  smirk  and  gloze, 
Come  others  for  as  short  a  stay, 
And  dear  are  these  as  those. 

And  who  was  this  ?     They  ask,  and  then 
The  loved  and  lost  I  praise 
"Like  you  they  frolicked,  they  are  men; 
Bless  ye  my  later  days." 

Why  fled?     The  hawks  I  trained  are  flown, 
'Twas  nature  bade  them  range, 
I  could  not  keep  their  wings  half-grown, 
I  could  not  bar  the  change. 

With  lattice  opened  wide  I  stand 
To  watch  their  eager  flight; 
With  broken  jesses  in  my  hand 
I  muse  on  their  delight. 

And  Oh !  if  one  with  sullied  plume 
Should  droop  in  mid  career, 
My  love  makes  signals, — "There  is  room, 
O  bleeding  wanderer,  here." 


358  IONICA 

This  comparison  of  the  educator  to  a  falconer,  and  of 
the  students  to  young  hawks  eager  to  break  their  jesses, 
seems  to  an  Englishman  particularly  happy  in  reference  to 
Eton,  from  which  so  many  youths  pass  into  the  ranks  of 
the  army  and  navy.  The  line  about  bowing,  smirking  and 
glozing,  refers  to  the  comparative  insincerity  of  the  higher 
society  into  which  so  many  of  the  scholars  must  eventually 
pass.  "Smirking"  suggests  insincere  smiles,  "glozing"  im- 
plies tolerating  or  lightly  passing  over  faults  or  wrongs 
or  serious  matters  that  should  not  be  considered  lightly. 
Society  is  essentially  insincere  and  artificial  in  all  countries, 
but  especially  so  in  England.  The  old  Eton  master  thinks, 
however,  that  he  knows  the  moral  character  of  the  boys, 
the  strong  principles  which  make  its  foundation,  and  he 
trusts  that  they  will  be  able  in  a  general  way  to  do  only 
what  is  right,  in  spite  of  conventions  and  humbug. 

As  I  told  you  before,  we  know  very  little  about  the 
personal  life  of  Cory,  who  must  have  been  a  very  reserved 
man;  but  a  poet  puts  his  heart  into  his  verses  as  a  general 
rule,  and  there  are  many  little  poems  in  this  book  that 
suggest  to  us  an  unhappy  love  episode.  These  are  extremely 
pretty  and  touching,  the  writer  in  most  cases  confessing 
himself  unworthy  of  the  person  who  charmed  him;  but  the 
finest  thing  of  the  kind  is  a  composition  which  he  sug- 
gestively entitled  "A  Fable" — that  is  to  say,  a  fable  in  the 
Greek  sense,  an  emblem  or  symbol  of  truth. 

An  eager  girl  whose  father  buys 

Some  ruined  thane's  forsaken  hall, 
Explores  the  new  domain  and  tries 

Before  the  rest  to  view  it  all. 

I  think  you  have  often  noted  the  fact  here  related;  when 
a  family  moves  to  a  new  house,  it  is  the  child,  or  the  young- 
est daughter,  who  is  the  first  to  explore  all  the  secrets  of 
the  new  residence,  and  whose  young  eyes  discover  things 
which  the  older  folks  had  not  noticed. 


IONICA  359 

Alone  she  lifts  the  latch,  and  glides 

Through  many  a  sadly  curtained  room, 
As  daylight  through  the  doorway  slides 

And  struggles  with  the  muffled  gloom. 

With  mimicries  of  dance  she  wakes 

The  lordly  gallery's  silent  floor, 
And  climbing  up  on  tiptoe,  makes 

The  Old  World  mirror  smile  once  more. 

With  tankards  dry  she  chills  her  lips, 

With  yellowing  laces  veils  the  head, 
And  leaps  in  pride  of  ownership 

Upon  the  faded  marriage  bed. 

A  harp  in  some  dark  nook  she  sees 

Long  left  a  prey  to  heat  and  frost, 
She  smites  it ;  can  such  tinklings  please  ? 

Is  not  all  worth,  all  beauty,  lost? 

Ah,  who'd  have  thought  such  sweetness  clung 

To  loose  neglected  strings  like  those? 
They  answered  to  whate'er  was  sung, 

And  sounded  as  a  lady  chose. 

Her  pitying  finger  hurried  by 

Each  vacant  space,  each  slackened  chord; 

Nor  would  her  wayward  zeal  let  die 
The  music-spirit  she  restored. 

The  fashion  quaint,  the  timeworn  flaws, 

The  narrow  range,  the  doubtful  tone, 
All  was  excused  awhile,  because 

It  seemed  a  creature  of  her  own. 

Perfection  tires;  the  new  in  old, 

The  mended  wrecks  that  need  her  skill, 
Amuse  her ;  if  the  truth  be  told, 

She  loves  the  triumphs  of  her  will. 

With  this,  she  dares  herself  persuade, 
She'll  be  for  many  months  content, 


360  IONICA 

Quite  sure  no  duchess  ever  played 
Upon  a  sweeter  instrument. 

And  thus  in  sooth  she  can  beguile 

Girlhood's  romantic  hours,  but  soon 
She  yields  to  taste  and  mood  and  style, 

A  siren  of  the  gay  saloon. 

And  wonders  how  she  once  could  like 
Those  drooping  wires,  those  failing  notes, 

And  leaves  her  toy  for  bats  to  strike 
Amongst  the  cobwebs  and  the  motes. 

But  enter  in,  thou  freezing  wind, 

And  snap  the  harp-strings,  one  by  one ; 

It  was  a  maiden  blithe  and  kind: 
They  felt  her  touch ;  their  task  is  done. 

In  this  charming  little  study  we  know  that  the  harp 
described  is  not  a  harp;  it  is  the  loving  heart  of  an  old 
man,  at  least  of  a  man  beyond  the  usual  age  of  lovers.  He 
has  described  and  perhaps  adored  some  beautiful  person  who 
seemed  to  care  for  him,  and  who  played  upon  his  heart, 
with  her  whims,  caresses,  smiles,  much  as  one  would  play 
upon  the  strings  of  a  harp.  She  did  not  mean  to  be  cruel 
at  all,  nor  even  insincere.  It  is  even  probable  that  she 
really  in  those  times  thought  that  she  loved  the  man,  and 
under  the  charms  of  the  girl  the  man  became  a  different 
being;  the  old-fashioned  mind  brightened,  the  old-fashioned 
heart  exposed  its  hidden  treasures  of  tenderness  and  wisdom 
and  sympathy.  Very  much  like  playing  upon  a  long  for- 
gotten instrument,  was  the  relation  between  the  maiden 
and  the  man — not  only  because  he  resembled  such  an  in- 
strument in  the  fact  of  belonging  emotionally  and  intel- 
lectually to  another  generation,  but  also  because  his  was 
a  heart  whose  true  music  had  long  been  silent,  unheard  by 
the  world.  Undoubtedly  the  maiden  meant  no  harm,  but 
she  caused  a  great  deal  of  pain,  for  at  a  later  day,  becoming 
a  great  lady  of  society,  she  forgot  all  about  this  old  friend- 


IONICA  361 

ship,  or  perhaps  wondered  why  she  ever  wasted  her  time 
in  talking  to  such  a  strange  old-fashioned  professor.  Then 
the  affectionate  heart  is  condemned  to  silence  again,  to 
silence  and  oblivion,  like  the  harp  thrown  away  in  some 
garret  to  be  covered  with  cobwebs  and  visited  only  by  bats. 
"Is  it  not  time,"  the  old  man  thinks,  "that  the  strings  should 
be  broken,  the  strings  of  the  heart*?  Let  the  cold  wind  of 
death  now  come  and  snap  them."  Yet,  after  all,  why 
should  he  complain*?  Did  he  not  have  the  beautiful  ex- 
perience of  loving,  and  was  she  not  in  that  time  at  least 
well  worthy  of  the  love  that  she  called  forth  like  music? 
There  are  several  other  poems  referring  to  what  would 
seem  to  be  the  same  experience,  and  all  are  beautiful,  but 
one  seems  to  me  nobler  than  the  rest,  expressing  as  it  does 
a  generous  resignation.  It  is  called  "Deteriora,"  a  Latin 
word  signifying  lesser,  inferior,  or  deteriorated  things — not 
easy  to  translate.  Nor  would  you  find  the  poem  easy  to 
understand,  referring  as  it  does  to  conditions  of  society 
foreign  to  anything  in  Japanese  experience.  But  some 
verses  which  I  may  quote  you  will  like. 

If  fate  and  nature  screen  from  me 

The  sovran  face  I  bowed  before, 
And  set  the  glorious  creature  free, 

Whom  I  would  clasp,  detain,  adore, — 
If  I  forego  that  strange  delight, 

Must  all  be  lost?     Not  quite,  not  quite. 

Die,  Little  Love,  without  complaint, 
Whom  honour  standeth  by  to  shrive: 

Assoiled  from  all  selfish  taint, 

Die,  Love,  whom  Friendship  will  survive. 

Not  hate  nor  folly  gave  thee  birth ; 
And  briefness  doth  but  raise  thy  worth. 

This  is  the  same  thought  which  Tennyson  expressed  in  his 

famous  lines, 

'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all. 


36S  IONICA 

But  it  is  still  more  finely  expressed  to  meet  a  particular 
personal  mood.  One  must  not  think  the  world  lost  because 
a  woman  has  been  lost,  he  says,  and  such  a  love  is  not  a 
thing  for  any  man  to  be  ashamed  of,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  it  has  been  disappointed.  It  was  honourable,  unselfish, 
not  inspired  by  any  passion  or  any  folly,  and  the  very 
brevity  of  the  experience  only  serves  to  make  it  more 
precious.  Observe  the  use  of  the  words  "shrive"  and  "as- 
soiled."  These  refer  to  the  old  religious  custom  of  con- 
fession; to  "shrive"  signifies  to  forgive,  to  free  from  sin, 
as  a  priest  is  supposed  to  do,  and  "assoiled"  means  "puri- 
fied." 

If  this  was  a  personal  experience,  it  must  have  been 
an  experience  of  advanced  life.  Elsewhere  the  story  of 
a  boyish  love  is  told  very  prettily,  under  the  title  of 
"Two  Fragments  of  Childhood."  This  is  the  first  frag- 
ment: 

When  these  locks  were  yellow  as  gold, 
When  past  days  were  easily  told, 
Well  I  knew  the  voice  of  the  sea, 
Once  he  spake  as  a  friend  to  me. 
Thunder-rollings  carelessly  heard, 
Once  that  poor  little  heart  they  stirred, 

Why,  Oh,  why? 

Memory,  memory? 
She  that  I  wished  to  be  with  was  by. 

Sick  was  I  in  those  misanthrope  days 

Of  soft  caresses,  womanly  ways ; 

Once  that  maid  on  the  stair  I  met 

Lip  on  brow  she  suddenly  set. 

Then  flushed  up  my  chivalrous  blood, 

Like  Swiss  streams  in  a  mid-summer  flood. 

Then,  Oh,  then, 

Imogen,  Imogen ! 
Hadst  thou  a  lover,  whose  years  were  ten. 

This  is  evidently  the  charming  memory  of  a  little  sick 


IONICA  363 

boy  sent  to  the  seaside  for  his  health,  according  to  the  Eng- 
lish custom,  and  unhappy  there,  unable  to  play  about  like 
stronger  children,  and  obliged  to  remain  under  the  constant 
care  of  nurses  and  female  relatives.  But  in  the  same  house 
there  is  another  family  with  a  beautiful  young  daughter, 
probably  sixteen  or  eighteen  years  old.  The  little  boy 
wishes,  wishes  so  much  that  the  beautiful  lady  would  speak 
to  him  and  play  with  him,  but  he  is  shy,  afraid  to  approach 
her — only  looks  at  her  with  great  admiring  loving  eyes. 
But  one  day  she  meets  him  on  the  stairs,  and  stoops  down 
and  kisses  him  on  the  forehead.  Then  he  is  in  Heaven. 
Afterward  no  doubt  she  played  with  him,  and  they  walked 
up  and  down  by  the  shore  of  the  sea  together,  and  now, 
though  an  old  man,  whenever  he  hears  the  roar  of  the  sea 
he  remembers  the  beautiful  lady  who  played  with  him  and 
caressed  him,  when  he  was  a  little  sick  child.  How  much 
he  loved  her!  But  she  was  a  woman,  and  he  was  only 
ten  years  old.  The  reference  to  "chivalrous  blood"  sig- 
nifies just  this,  that  at  the  moment  when  she  kissed  him  he 
would  have  given  his  life  for  her,  would  have  dared  any- 
thing or  done  anything  to  show  his  devotion  to  her.  No 
prettier  memory  of  a  child  could  be  told. 

We  can  learn  a  good  deal  about  even  the  shyest  of  the 
poets  through  a  close  understanding  of  his  poetry.  From 
the  foregoing  we  know  that  Cory  must  have  been  a  sickly 
child;  and  from  other  poems  referring  to  school  life  we 
cannot  escape  the  supposition  that  he  was  not  a  strong  lad. 
In  one  of  his  verses  he  speaks  of  being  unable  to  join  in 
the  hearty  play  of  his  comrades;  and  in  the  poem  which 
touches  on  the  life  of  the  mature  man  we  find  him  acknowl- 
edging that  he  believed  his  life  a  failure — a  failure  through 
want  of  strength.  I  am  going  to  quote  this  poem  for  other 
reasons.  It  is  a  beautiful  address  either  to  some  favourite 
student  or  to  a  beloved  son — it  is  impossible  to  decide  which. 
But  that  does  not  matter.  The  title  is  "A  New  Year's 
Day." 


364  IONICA 

Our  planet  runs  through  liquid  space, 
And  sweeps  us  with  her  in  the  race 
And  wrinkles  gather  on  my  face, 

And  Hebe  bloom  on  thine : 
Our  sun  with  his  encircling  spheres 
Around  the  central  sun  careers ; 
And  unto  thee  with  mustering  years 

Comes  hope  which  I  resign. 

'Twere  sweet  for  me  to  keep  thee  still 
Reclining  half  way  up  the  hill; 
But  time  will  not  obey  the  will, 

And  onward  thou  must  climb : 
'Twere  sweet  to  pause  on  this  descent, 
To  wait  for  thee  and  pitch  my  tent, 
But  march  I  must  with  shoulders  bent, 

Yet  further  from  my  prime. 

/  shall  not  tread  thy  battlefield 
Nor  see  the  blazon  on  thy  shield; 
Take  thou  the  sword  I  could  not  wield, 

And  leave  me,  and  forget, 
Be  fairer,  braver,  more  admired; 
To  win  what  feeble  hearts  desired; 
Then  leave  thine  arms,  when  thou  art  tired, 
To  some  one  nobler  yet. 

How  beautiful  this  is,  and  how  profoundly  sad ! 

I  shall  return  to  the  personal  poetry  of  Cory  later  on, 
but  I  want  now  to  give  you  some  examples  of  his  Greek 
work.  Perhaps  the  best  of  this  is  little  more  than  a  render- 
ing of  Greek  into  English;  some  of  the  work  is  pure  trans- 
lation. But  it  is  the  translation  of  a  very  great  master, 
the  perfect  rendering  of  Greek  feeling  as  well  as  of  Greek 
thought.     Here  is  an  example  of  pure  translation: 

They  told  me,  Heraclitus,  they  told  me  you  were  dead, 
S    They  brought  me  bitter  music  to  hear  and  bitter  tears  to  shed 
I  wept  as  I  remembered  how  often  you  and  I 
Had  tired  the  sun  with  talking  and  sent  him  down  the  sky. 


IONICA  365 

And  now  that  thou  art  lying,  my  dear  Carian  guest, 
A  handful  of  grey  ashes,  long,  long  ago  at  rest, 
Still  art  thy  pleasant  voices,  thy  nightingales  awake ; 
For  Death,  he  taketh  all  away,  but  them  he  cannot  take. 

What  are  "thy  pleasant  voices,  thy  nightingales"  *?  They 
are  the  songs  which  the  dear  dead  poet  made,  still  sung 
in  his  native  country,  though  his  body  was  burned  to  ashes 
long  ago — has  been  changed  into  a  mere  handful  of  grey 
ashes,  which,  doubtless,  have  been  placed  in  an  urn,  as  is 
done  with  such  ashes  today  in  Japan.  Death  takes  away 
all  things  from  man,  but  not  his  poems,  his  songs,  the  beau- 
tiful thoughts  which  he  puts  into  musical  verse.  These  will 
always  be  heard  like  nightingales.  The  fourth  line  in  the 
first  stanza  contains  an  idiom  which  may  not  be  familiar 
to  you.  It  means  only  that  the  two  friends  talked  all  day 
until  the  sun  set  in  the  west,  and  still  talked  on  after  that. 
Tennyson  has  used  the  same  Greek  thought  in  a  verse  of 
his  poem,  "A  Dream  of  Fair  Women,"  where  Cleopatra  says 

"We  drank  the  Lybian  sun  to  sleep." 

The  Greek  author  of  the  above  poem  was  the  great  poet 
Callimachus,  and  the  English  translator  does  not  think  it 
necessary  even  to  give  the  name,  as  he  wrote  only  for  folk 
well  acquainted  with  the  classics.  He  has  another  short 
translation  which  he  accompanies  with  the  original  Greek 
text;  it  is  very  pretty,  but  of  an  entirely  different  kind,  a 
kind  that  may  remind  you  of  some  Japanese  poems.  It  is 
only  about  a  cicada  and  a  peasant  girl,  and  perhaps  it  is 
twenty-four  or  twenty-five  hundred  years  old.  A  dry 
cicada  chirps  to  a  lass  making  hay. 

"Why  creakest  thou,  Tithonus?" 

Quoth  she. 
"I  don't  play; 

It  doubles  my  toil,  your  importunate  lay, 
I've  earned  a  sweet  pillow,  lo !  Herper  is  nigh ; 


366  IONICA 

I  clasp  a  good  wisp  and  in  fragrance  I  lie ; 
But  thou  art  unwearied,  and  empty,  and  dry." 

How  very  human  this  little  thing  is — how  actually  it  brings 
before  us  the  figure  of  the  girl,  who  must  have  become  dust 
some  time  between  two  and  three  thousand  years  ago !  She 
is  working  hard  in  the  field,  and  the  constant  singing  of  the 
insect  prompts  her  to  make  a  comical  protest.  "Oh,  Tith- 
onus,  what  are  you  making  that  creaking  noise  for4?  You 
old  dry  thing,  I  have  no  time  to  play  with  you,  or  to  idle  in 
any  way,  but  you  do  nothing  but  complain.  Why  don't 
you  work,  as  I  do?  Soon  I  shall  have  leave  to  sleep,  because 
I  have  worked  well.  There  is  the  evening  star,  and  I  shall 
have  a  good  bed  of  hay,  sweet-smelling  fresh  hay,  to  lie 
upon.  How  well  I  shall  sleep.  But  you,  you  idle  noisy 
thing,  you  do  not  deserve  to  sleep.  You  have  done  nothing 
to  tire  you.  And  you  are  empty,  dry  and  thirsty.  Serves 
you  right!"  Of  course  you  recognize  the  allusion  to  the 
story  of  Tithonus,  so  beautifully  told  by  Tennyson.  The 
girl's  jest  has  a  double  meaning.  The  word  "importunate" 
has  the  signification  of  a  wearisome  repetition  of  a  request, 
a  constant  asking,  impossible  to  satisfy.  Tithonus  was 
supposed  to  complain  because  he  was  obliged  to  live  al- 
though he  wanted  to  die.  That  young  girl  does  not  want 
to  die  at  all.  And  she  says  that  the  noise  of  the  insect 
supposed  to  repeat  the  complaint  of  Tithonus,  only  makes  it 
more  tiresome  for  her  to  work.  She  was  feeling,  no  doubt, 
much  as  a  Japanese  student  would  feel  when  troubled  by 
the  singing  of  semi  on  some  very  hot  afternoon  while  he 
is  trying  to  master  some  difficult  problem. 

That  is  pure  Greek — pure  as  another  mingling  of  the 
Greek  feeling  with  the  modern  scholarly  spirit,  entitled 
"An  Invocation."  Before  quoting  from  it  I  must  explain 
somewhat;  otherwise  you  might  not  be  able  to  imagine 
what  it  means,  because  it  was  written  to  be  read  by  those 
only  who  are  acquainted  with  Theocritus  and  the  Greek 


IONICA  367 

idylists.  Perhaps  I  had  better  say  something  too,  about 
the  word  idyl,  for  the  use  of  the  word  by  Tennyson  is  not 
the  Greek  use  at  all,  except  in  the  mere  fact  that  the  word 
signifies  a  picturing,  a  shadowing  or  an  imaging  of  things. 
Tennyson's  pictures  are  of  a  purely  imaginative  kind  in  the 
"Idyls  of  the  King."  But  the  Greek  poets  who  first  in- 
vented the  poetry  called  idyllic  did  not  attempt  the  heroic 
works  of  imagination  at  all ;  they  only  endeavoured  to  make 
perfectly  true  pictures  of  the  common  life  of  peasants  in 
the  country.  They  wrote  about  the  young  men  and  young 
girls  working  on  the  farms,  about  the  way  they  quarrelled 
or  rejoiced  or  made  love,  about  their  dances  and  their  songs, 
about  their  religious  festivals  and  their  sacrifices  to  the 
gods  at  the  parish  temple.  Imagine  a  Japanese  scholar  of 
today  who,  after  leaving  the  university,  instead  of  busying 
himself  with  the  fashionable  studies  of  the  time,  should  go 
out  into  the  remoter  districts  or  islands  of  Japan,  and 
devote  his  life  to  studying  the  existence  of  the  commoner 
people  there,  and  making  poems  about  it.  This  was  ex- 
actly what  the  Greek  idylists  did, — that  is,  the  best  of 
them.  They  were  great  scholars  and  became  friends  of 
kings,  but  they  wrote  poetry  chiefly  about  peasant  life,  and 
they  gave  all  their  genius  to  the  work.  The  result  was  so 
beautiful  that  everybody  is  still  charmed  by  the  pictures 
or  idyls  which  they  made. 

Well,  after  this  disgression,  to  return  to  the  subject  of 
Theocritus,  the  greatest  of  the  idylists.  He  has  often  in- 
troduced into  his  idyls  the  name  of  Comatas.  Who  was 
Comatas*?  Comatas  was  a  Greek  shepherd  boy,  or  more 
strictly  speaking  a  goatherd,  who  kept  the  flocks  of  a  rich 
man.  It  was  his  duty  to  sacrifice  to  the  gods  none  of  his 
master's  animals,  without  permission;  but  as  his  master 
was  a  very  avaricious  person,  Comatas  knew  that  it  would 
be  of  little  use  to  ask  him.  Now  this  Comatas  was  a  very 
good  singer  of  peasant  songs,  and  he  made  many  beautiful 
poems  for  the  people  to  sing,  and  he  believed  that  it  was 


868  IONICA 

the  gods  who  had  given  him  power  to  make  the  songs,  and 
the  Muses  had  inspired  him  with  the  capacity  to  make  good 
verse.  In  spite  of  his  master's  will,  Comatas  therefore 
thought  it  was  not  very  bad  to  take  the  young  kids  and 
sacrifice  to  the  gods  and  the  Muses.  When  his  master 
found  out  what  had  been  done  with  the  animals,  naturally 
he  became  very  angry,  and  he  put  Comatas  into  a  great  box 
of  cedar-wood  in  order  to  starve  him  to  death — saying,  as 
he  closed  and  locked  the  lid,  "Now,  Comatas,  let  us  see 
whether  the  gods  will  feed  you!"  In  that  box  Comatas 
was  left  for  a  year  without  food  or  drink,  and  when  the 
master,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  opened  the  box,  he  expected 
to  find  nothing  but  the  bones  of  the  goatherd.  But  Comatas 
was  alive  and  well,  singing  sweet  songs,  because  during  the 
year  the  muses  had  sent  bees  to  feed  him  with  honey.  The 
bees  had  been  able  to  enter  the  box  through  a  very  little 
hole.  I  suppose  you  know  that  bees  were  held  sacred  to 
the  muses,  and  that  there  is  in  Greek  legend  a  symbolic 
relation  between  bees  and  poetry. 

If  you  want  to  know  what  kind  of  songs  Comatas  sang 
and  what  kind  of  life  he  represented,  you  will  find  all  this 
exquisitely  told  by  Theocritus;  and  there  is  a  beautiful  little 
translation  in  prose  of  Theocritus,  Bion  and  Moschus,  made 
by  Andrew  Lang,  which  should  delight  you  to  read.  An- 
other day  I  shall  give  you  examples  of  such  translations. 
Then  you  will  see  what  true  idyllic  poetry  originally  sig- 
nified. These  Greeks,  although  trained  scholars  and  phi- 
losophers, understood  not  only  that  human  nature  in  itself 
is  a  beautiful  thing,  but  also  that  the  best  way  to  study 
human  nature  is  to  study  the  life  of  the  peasants  and  the 
common  people.  It  is  not  to  the  rich  and  leisurely,  not  to 
rank  and  society,  that  a  poet  must  go  for  inspiration.  He 
will  not  find  it  there.  What  is  called  society  is  a  world 
in  which  nobody  is  happy,  and  in  which  pure  human  nature 
is  afraid  to  show  itself.  Life  among  the  higher  classes  in 
all  countries  is  formal,  artificial,  theatrical;  poetry  is  not 


IONICA  369 

there.  Of  course  no  kind  of  human  community  is  perfectly 
happy,  but  it  is  among  the  simple  folk,  the  country  folk, 
who  do  not  know  much  about  evil  and  deceit,  that  the 
greater  proportion  of  happiness  can  be  found.  Among  the 
youths  of  the  country  especially,  combining  the  charm  of 
childhood  with  the  strength  of  adult  maturity,  the  best  pos- 
sible subjects  for  fine  pure  studies  of  human  nature  can  be 
found.  May  I  not  here  express  the  hope  that  some  young 
Japanese  poet,  some  graduate  of  this  very  university,  will 
eventually  attempt  to  do  in  Japan  what  Theocritus  and 
Bion  did  in  ancient  Sicily?  A  great  deal  of  the  very  same 
kind  of  poetry  exists  in  our  own  rural  districts,  and  paral- 
lels can  be  found  in  the  daily  life  of  the  Japanese  peasants 
for  everything  beautifully  described  in  Theocritus.  At  all 
events  I  am  quite  sure  of  one  thing,  that  no  great  new 
literature  can  possibly  arise  in  this  country  until  some  schol- 
arly minds  discover  that  the  real  force  and  truth  and  beauty 
and  poetry  of  life  is  to  be  found  only  in  studies  of  the 
common  people — not  in  the  life  of  the  rich  and  the  noble, 
not  in  the  shadowy  life  of  books. 

Well,  our  English  poet  felt  with  the  Greek  idylists,  and 
in  the  poem  called  "An  Invocation"  he  beautifully  expresses 
this  sympathy.  All  of  us,  he  says,  should  like  to  see  and 
hear  something  of  the  ancient  past  if  it  were  possible.  We 
should  like,  some  of  us,  to  call  back  the  vanished  gods  and 
goddesses  of  the  beautiful  Greek  world,  or  to  talk  to  the 
great  souls  of  that  world  who  had  the  experience  of  life  as 
men — to  Socrates,  for  example,  to  Plato,  to  Phidias  the 
sculptor,  to  Pericles  the  statesman.  But,  as  a  poet,  my 
wish  would  not  be  for  the  return  of  the  old  gods  nor  of  the 
old  heroes  so  much  as  for  the  return  to  us  of  some  common 
men  who  lived  in  the  Greek  world.  It  is  Comatas,  he  says, 
that  he  would  most  like  to  see,  and  to  see  in  some  English 
park — in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cambridge  University,  or 
of  Eton  College.  And  thus  he  addresses  the  spirit  of 
Comatas : 


370  IONICA 

O  dear  divine  Comatas,  I  would  that  thou  and  I 

Beneath  this  broken  sunlight  this  leisure  day  might  lie ; 

Where  trees  from  distant  forests,  whose  names  were  strange  to  thee, 

Should  bend  their  amorous  branches  within  thy  reach  to  be, 

And  flowers  thine  Hellas  knew  not,  which  art  hath  made  more  fair, 

Should  shed  their  shining  petals  upon  thy  fragrant  hair. 

Then  thou  shouldst  calmly  listen  with  ever  changing  looks, 

To  songs  of  younger  minstrels  and  plots  of  modern  books, 

And  wonder  at  the  daring  of  poets  later  born — 

Whose  thoughts  are  unto  thy  thoughts  as  noontide  is  to  morn. 

And  little  should  thou  grudge  them  their  greater  strength  of  soul, 

Thy  partners  in  the  torch  race,  though  nearer  to  the  goal. 

Or  in  thy  cedarn  prison  thou  waitest  for  the  bee ; 
Ah,  leave  that  simple  honey  and  take  thy  food  from  me. 
My  sun  is  stooping  westward.     Entranced  dreamer,  haste ; 
There's  fruitage  in  my  garden  that  I  would  have  thee  taste. 
Now  lift  the  lid  a  moment ;  now,  Dorian  shepherd,  speak. 
Two  minds  shall  flow  together,  the  English  and  the  Greek ! 

A  few  phrases  of  these  beautiful  stanzas  need  explana- 
tion. "Broken  sunlight"  refers,  of  course,  to  the  imperfect 
shade  thrown  by  the  trees  under  which  the  poet  is  lying. 
The  shadow  is  broken  by  the  light  passing  through  leaves, 
or  conversely,  the  light  is  broken  by  the  interposition  of  the 
leaves.  The  reference  to  trees  from  distant  forests  no  doubt 
intimates  that  the  poet  is  in  some  botanical  garden,  a  private 
park,  in  which  foreign  trees  are  carefully  cultivated.  The 
"torch  race"  is  a  simile  for  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  and 
truth.  Greek  thinkers  compare  the  transmission  of  knowl- 
edge from  one  generation  to  another,  to  the  passing  of  a 
lighted  torch  from  hand  to  hand,  as  in  the  case  of  mes- 
sengers carrying  signals  or  athletes  running  a  mighty  race. 
As  a  runner  runs  until  he  is  tired,  or  until  he  reaches  the 
next  station,  and  then  passes  the  torch  which  he  has  been 
carrying  to  another  runner  waiting  to  receive  it,  so  does 
each  generation  pass  on  its  wisdom  to  the  succeeding  genera- 
tion, and  disappear.  "My  sun  is  stooping  westward"  is 
only  a  beautiful  way  of  saying,  "I  am  becoming  very  old; 


IONICA  371 

be  quick,  so  that  we  may  see  each  other  before  I  die."  And 
the  poet  suggests  that  it  is  because  of  his  age  and  his  experi- 
ence and  his  wisdom  that  he  could  hope  to  be  of  service  to 
the  dear  divine  Comatas.  The  expression,  "there  is  fruit- 
age in  my  garden,"  refers  to  no  material  garden,  but  to  the 
cultivated  mind  of  the  scholar;  he  is  only  saying,  "I  have 
strange  knowledge  that  I  should  like  to  impart  to  you," 
How  delightful,  indeed,  it  would  be,  could  some  university 
scholar  really  converse  with  a  living  Greek  of  the  old  days! 
There  is  another  little  Greek  study  of  great  and  simple 
beauty  entitled  "The  Daughter  of  Cleomenes."  It  is  only 
an  historical  incident,  but  it  is  so  related  for  the  pleasure 
of  suggesting  a  profound  truth  about  the  instinct  of  child- 
hood. Long  ago,  when  the  Persians  were  about  to  make 
an  attack  upon  the  Greeks,  there  was  an  attempt  to  buy 
off  the  Spartan  resistance,  and  the  messenger  to  the  Spartan 
general  found  him  playing  with  his  little  daughter,  a  child 
of  six  or  seven.  The  conference  was  carried  on  in  whispers, 
and  the  child  could  not  hear  what  was  being  said;  but  she 
broke  up  the  whole  plot  by  a  single  word.  I  shall  quote 
a  few  lines  from  the  close  of  the  poem,  which  contain  its 
moral  lessons.  The  emissary  has  tried  to  tempt  him  with 
promises  of  wealth  and  power.     He  falters,  wavers — 

The  roads  he  cannot  measure ; 

But  rates  full  high  the  gleam  of  spears, 
And  dreams  of  yellow  treasure. 
He  listens ;  he  is  yielding  now ; 

Outspoke  the  fearless  child: 
"Oh,  Father,  come  away,  lest  thou 

Be  by  this  man  beguiled." 
Her  lowly  judgment  barred  the  plea, 

So  low,  it  could  not  reach  her. 
The  man  knows  more  of  land  and  seay 

But  she's  the  truer  teacher. 

All  the  little  girl  could  know  about  the  matter  was  in- 
stinctive; she  only  saw  the  cunning  face  of  the  stranger, 


372  IONICA 

and  felt  sure  that  he  was  trying  to  deceive  her  father  for  a 
bad  purpose — so  she  cried  out,  "Father  come  away  with 
me,  or  else  that  man  will  deceive  you."  And  she  spoke 
truth,  as  her  father  immediately  recognized. 

There  are  several  more  classical  studies  of  extraordinary 
beauty;  but  your  interest  in  them  would  depend  upon  some- 
thing more  than  interest  in  Greek  and  Roman  history,  and 
we  can  not  study  all  the  poems.  So  I  prefer  to  go  back 
to  the  meditative  lyrics,  and  to  give  a  few  splendid  examples 
of  these  more  personal  compositions.  The  following  stanzas 
are  from  a  poem  whose  Latin  title  signifies  that  Love  con- 
quers death.  In  this  poem  the  author  becomes  the  equal  of 
Tennyson  as  a  master  of  language. 

The  plunging  rocks,  whose  ravenous  throats 

The  sea  in  wrath  and  mockery  nils. 
The  smoke  that  up  the  valley  floats, 

The  girlhood  of  the  growing  hills ; 

The  thunderings  from  the  miners'  ledge, 
The  wild  assaults  on  Nature's  hoards, 

The  peak  that  stormward  bares  an  edge 
Ground  sharp  in  days  when  Titans  warred; 

Grim  heights,  by  wandering  clouds  embraced, 
Where  lightning's  ministers  conspire, 

Grey  glens,  with  tarns  and  streamlets  laced, 
Stark  forgeries  of  primeval  fire. 

These  scenes  may  gladden  many  a  mind, 
Awhile  from  homelier  thoughts  released, 

And  here  my  fellow  men  may  find 
A  Sabbath  and  a  vision-feast. 

/  bless  them  in  the  good  they  feel; 

And  yet  I  bless  them  with  a  sigh; 
On  me  this  grandeur  stamps  the  seal 

Of  tyrannous  mortality. 

The  pitiless  mountain  stands  so  sure, 
The  human  breast  so  weakly  heaves, 


IONICA  373 

That  brains  decay  while  rocks  endure, — 
At  this  the  insatiate  spirit  grieves. 

But  hither,  Oh,  ideal  bride ! 

For  whom  this  heart  in  silence  aches, 
Love  is  unwearied  as  the  tide, 

Love  is  perennial  as  the  lakes. 

Come  thou.     The  spiky  crags  will  seem 

One  harvest  of  one  heavenly  year, 
And  fear  of  death,  like  childish  dream, 

Will  pass  and  flee,  when  thou  art  here. 

Very  possibly  this  charming  meditation  was  written  on 
the  Welsh  coast;  there  is  just  such  scenery  as  the  poem 
describes,  and  the  grand  peak  of  Snowdon  would  well 
realize  the  imagination  of  the  line  about  the  girlhood  of 
the  growing  hills.  The  melancholy  of  the  latter  part  of 
the  composition  is  the  same  melancholy  to  be  found  in 
"Mimnermus  in  Church,"  the  first  of  Cory's  poems  which 
we  read  together.  It  is  the  Greek  teaching  that  there  is 
nothing  to  console  us  for  the  great  doubt  and  mystery  of 
existence  except  unselfish  affection.  All  through  the  book 
we  find  the  same  philosophy,  even  in  the  beautiful  studies 
of  student  life  and  the  memories  of  childhood.  So  it  is 
quite  a  melancholy  book,  though  the  sadness  be  beautiful. 
I  have  given  you  examples  of  the  sadness  of  doubt  and  of 
the  sadness  of  love;  but  there  is  yet  a  third  kind  of  sadness 
— the  sadness  of  a  childless  man,  wishing  that  he  could  have 
a  child  of  his  own.  It  is  a  very  pretty  thing,  simply  en- 
titled "Scheveningen  Avenue" — probably  the  name  of  the 
avenue  where  the  incident  occurred.  The  poet  does  not 
tell  us  how  it  occurred,  but  we  can  very  well  guess.  He 
was  riding  in  a  street  car,  probably,  and  a  little  girl  next 
to  him,  while  sitting  upon  her  nurse's  lap,  fell  asleep,  and 
as  she  slept  let  her  head  fall  upon  his  shoulder.  This  is  a 
very  simple  thing  to  make  a  poem  about,  but  what  a  poem 
it  is! 


374  IONICA 


Oh,  that  the  road  were  longer 
A  mile,  or  two,  or  three ! 

So  might  the  thought  grow  stronger 
That  flows  from  touch  of  thee. 

Oh,  little  slumbering  maid, 

If  thou  zvert  five  years  older. 

Thine  head  would  not  be  laid 
So  simply  on  my  shoulder/ 

Ok,  would  that  I  were  younger, 
Oh,  were  I  more  like  thee, 

I  should  not  faintly  hunger 
For  love  that  cannot  be. 

A  girl  might  be  caressed 
Beside  me  freely  sitting; 

A  child  on  knee  might  rest, 
And  not  like  thee,  unwitting. 

Such  honour  is  thy  mother's, 
Who  smileth  on  thy  sleep, 

Or  for  the  nurse  who  smothers 
Thy  cheek  in  kisses  deep. 

And  but  for  parting  day, 
And  but  for  forest  shady 

From  me  they'd  take  away 
The  burden  of  their  lady. 

Ah  thus  to  feel  thee  leaning 
Above  the  nursemaid's  hand, 

Is  like  a  stranger's  gleaning 
Where  rich  men  own  the  land. 

Chance  gains,  and  humble  thrift, 
With  shyness  much  like  thieving, 

No  notice  with  the  gift, 
No  thanks  with  thee  receiving. 

Oh  peasant,  when  thou  starvest 
Outside  thy  fair  domain, 


IONICA  375 

Imagine  there's  a  harvest 
In  every  treasured  grain! 

Make  with  thy  thoughts  high  cheer, 

Say  grace  for  others  dining, 
And  keep  thy  pittance  clear 

From  poison  of  repining. 

There  is  an  almost  intolerable  acuity  of  sadness  in  the 
last  two  mocking  verses,  but  how  pretty  and  how  tender 
the  whole  thing  is,  and  how  gentle-hearted  must  have  been 
the  man  who  wrote  it!  The  same  tenderness  reappears  in 
references  to  children  of  a  larger  growth,  the  boys  of  his 
school.  Sometimes  he  very  much  regrets  the  necessity  of 
discipline,  and  advocates  a  wiser  method  of  dealing  with 
the  young.  How  very  pretty  is  this  little  verse  about  the 
boy  he  loves. 

Sweet  eyes,  that  aim  a  level  shaft, 

At  pleasure  flying  from  afar, 
Sweet  lips,  just  parted  for  a  draught 

Of  Hebe's  nectar,  shall  I  mar 
By  stress  of  disciplinal  craft 

The  joys  that  in  your  freedom  are? 

But  a  little  reflection  further  on  in  the  same  poem  re- 
minds us  how  necessary  the  discipline  must  be  for  the  battle 
of  life,  inasmuch  as  each  of  those  charming  boys  will  have 
to  fight  against  evil — 

yet  shall  ye  cope 
With  worldling  wrapped  in  silken  lies, 
With  pedant,  hypocrite  and  pope. 

One  might  easily  lecture  about  this  little  volume  for 
many  more  days,  so  beautiful  are  the  things  which  fill  it. 
But  enough  has  been  cited  to  exemplify  its  unique  value. 
If  you  reread  these  quotations,  I  think  you  will  find  each 
time  new  beauty  in  them.  And  the  beauty  is  quite  peculiar. 
Such  poetry  could  have  been  written  only  under  two  con- 


376  IONICA 


ditions.  The  first  is  that  the  poet  be  a  consummate  scholar. 
The  second  is  that  he  must  have  suffered  as  only  a  great 
mind  and  heart  could  suffer,  from  want  of  affection. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS 

The  other  day  when  we  were  reading  some  of  the  poems 
in  "Ionica,"  I  promised  to  speak  in  another  short  essay  of 
Theocritus  and  his  songs  or  idyls  of  Greek  peasant  life, 
but  in  speaking  of  him  it  will  be  well  also  to  speak  of 
others  who  equally  illustrate  the  fact  that  everywhere  there 
is  truth  and  beauty  for  the  mind  that  can  see.  I  spoke  last 
week  about  what  I  thought  the  highest  possible  kind  of 
literary  art  might  become.  But  the  possible  becoming  is 
yet  far  away;  and  in  speaking  of  some  old  Greek  writers 
I  want  only  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  modern  literary  art 
as  well  as  ancient  literary  art  produced  their  best  results 
from  a  close  study  of  human  nature. 

Although  Theocritus  and  others  who  wrote  idyls  found 
their  chief  inspiration  in  the  life  of  the  peasants,  they  some- 
times also  wrote  about  the  life  of  cities.  Human  nature 
may  be  studied  in  the  city  as  well  as  in  the  country,  pro- 
vided that  a  man  knows  how  to  look  for  it.  It  is  not  in 
the  courts  of  princes  nor  the  houses  of  nobles  nor  the  resi- 
dences of  the  wealthy  that  such  study  can  be  made.  These 
superior  classes  have  found  it  necessary  to  show  themselves 
to  the  world  very  cautiously;  they  live  by  rule,  they  con- 
ceal their  emotions,  they  move  theatrically.  But  the  ordi- 
nary, everyday  people  of  cities  are  very  different;  they 
speak  their  thoughts,  they  keep  their  hearts  open,  and  they 
let  us  see,  just  as  children  do,  the  good  or  the  evil  side  of 
their  characters.  So  a  good  poet  and  a  good  observer  can 
find  in  the  life  of  cities  subjects  of  study  almost  as  easily 
as  in  the  country.  Theocritus  has  done  this  in  his  fifteenth 
idyl.  This  idyl  is  very  famous,  and  it  has  been  translated 
hundreds  of  times  into  various  languages.     Perhaps  you 

377 


378  OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS 

may  have  seen  one  version  of  it  which  was  made  by  Mat- 
thew Arnold.  But  I  think  that  the  version  made  by  Lang 
is  even  better. 

The  scene  is  laid  in  Alexandria,  probably  some  two  thou- 
sand years  ago,  and  the  occasion  is  a  religious  holiday — a 
matsuri,  as  we  call  it  in  Japan.  Two  women  have  made 
an  appointment  to  go  together  to  the  temple,  to  see  the 
festival  and  to  see  the  people.  The  poet  begins  his  study 
by  introducing  us  to  the  chamber  of  one  of  the  women. 

Goro.     "Is  Praxinoe  at  home'?" 

Praxinoe.  "Dear  Gorgo,  how  long  is  it  since  you  have 
been  here !  She  is  at  home.  The  wonder  is  that  you  have 
got  here  at  last !  Eunoe,  come  and  see  that  she  has  a  chair 
and  put  a  cushion  on  it!" 

G.     "It  does  most  charmingly  as  it  is." 

P.     "Do  sit  down." 

How  natural  this  is.  There  is  nothing  Greek  about  it 
any  more  than  there  is  Japanese;  it  is  simply  human.  It 
is  something  that  happens  in  Tokyo  every  day,  certainly  in 
houses  where  there  are  chairs  and  where  it  is  a  custom  to 
put  a  cushion  on  the  chair  for  the  visitor.  But  remem- 
ber, this  was  two  thousand  years  ago.  Now  listen  to  what 
the  visitor  has  to  say. 

"I  have  scarcely  got  to  you  at  all,  Praxinoe!  What  a 
huge  crowd,  what  hosts  of  carriages !  Everywhere  cavalry 
boots,  everywhere  men  in  uniform!  And  the  road  is  end- 
less; yes,  you  really  live  too  far  away!" 

Praxinoe  answers: 

"It  is  all  for  that  mad  man  of  mine.  Here  he  came  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth  and  took  a  hall,  not  a  house,  and  all 
that  we  might  not  be  neighbours.  The  jealous  wretch,  al- 
ways the  same,  ever  for  spite." 

She  is  speaking  half  in  jest,  half  in  earnest;  but  she  for- 
gets that  her  little  boy  is  present,  and  the  visitor  reminds 
her  of  the  fact: 

"Don't  talk  of  your  husband  like  that,  my  dear  girl,  be- 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS  379 

fore  the  little  boy, — look  how  he  is  staring  at  you ! — Never 
mind,  Zaphyrion,  sweet  child,  she  is  not  speaking  about 
papa." 

P.     "Our  Lady!  (Persephone)    The  child  takes  notice !" 

Then  the  visitor  to  comfort  the  child  says  "Nice  papa," 
and  the  conversation  proceeds.  The  two  talk  about  their 
husbands,  about  their  dresses,  about  the  cost  of  things  in 
the  shops;  but  in  order  to  see  the  festival  Praxinoe  must 
dress  herself  quickly,  and  woman,  two  thousand  years  ago, 
just  as  now,  takes  a  long  time  to  dress.  Hear  Praxinoe 
talking  to  her  maid-servant  while  she  hurries  to  get  ready: 

"Eunoe,  bring  the  water  and  put  it  down  in  the  middle 
of  the  room, — lazy  creature  that  you  are.  Cat-like,  always 
trying  to  sleep  soft!  Come,  bustle,  bring  the  water; 
quicker!  I  want  water  first, — and  how  she  carries  it! 
Give  it  me  all  the  same; — don't  pour  out  so  much,  you  ex- 
travagant thing !  Stupid  girl !  Why  are  you  wetting  my 
dress*?  There,  stop,  I  have  washed  my  hands  as  heaven 
would  have  it.  Where  is  the  key  of  the  big  chest1?  Bring 
it  here." 

This  is  life,  natural  and  true;  we  can  see  those  three  to- 
gether, the  girlish  young  wife  hurrying  and  scolding  and 
chattering  naturally  and  half  childishly,  the  patient  servant 
girl  smiling  at  the  hurry  of  her  mistress,  and  the  visitor 
looking  at  her  friend's  new  dress,  wondering  how  much  it 
cost  and  presently  asking  her  the  price.  At  last  all  is 
ready.  But  the  little  boy  sees  his  mother  go  out  and  he 
wants  to  go  out  too,  though  it  has  been  decided  not  to  take 
him,  because  the  crowd  is  too  rough  and  he  might  be  hurt. 
Here  the  mother  first  explains,  then  speaks  firmly: 

"No,  child,  I  don't  mean  to  take  you.  Boo!  Bogies! 
There  is  a  horse  that  bites !  Cry  as  much  as  you  please,  but 
I  cannot  have  you  maimed." 

They  go  out,  Praxinoe  and  Gorgo  and  the  maid-servant 
Eunoe.  The  crowd  is  tremendous,  and  they  find  it  very 
hard  to  advance.     Sometimes  there  are  horses  in  the  way, 


380  OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS 

sometimes  wagons,  occasionally  a  legion  of  cavalry.  We 
know  all  this,  because  we  hear  the  chatter  of  the  women 
as  they  make  their  way  through  the  press. 

"Give  me  your  hand,  and  you,  Eunoe,  catch  hold  of  Euty- 
chis, — for  fear  lest  you  get  lost.  .  .  .  Here  come  the  kings 
on  horses!  My  dear  man,  don't  trample  on  me.  Eunoe, 
you  fool-hardy  girl,  will  you  never  keep  out  of  the  way? 
Oh !  How  tiresome,  Gorgo,  my  muslin  veil  is  torn  in  two  al- 
ready. .  .  .  For  heaven's  sake,  sir,  if  you  ever  wish  to  be 
fortunate,  take  care  of  my  shawl !" 

Stranger.  "I  can  hardly  help  myself,  but  for  all  that 
I  will  be  as  helpful  as  I  can." 

The  strange  man  helps  the  women  and  children  through 
the  pushing  crowd,  and  they  thank  him  very  prettily,  pray- 
ing that  he  may  have  good  fortune  all  his  life.  But  not 
all  the  strangers  who  come  in  contact  with  them  happen  to 
be  so  kind.  They  come  at  last  into  that  part  of  the  temple 
ground  where  the  image  of  Adonis  is  displayed ;  the  beauty 
of  the  statue  moves  them,  and  they  utter  exclamations  of  de- 
light. This  does  not  please  some  of  the  male  spectators, 
one  of  whom  exclaims,  "You  tiresome  women,  do  cease  your 
endless  cooing  talk!  They  bore  one  to  death  with  their 
eternal  broad  vowels!" 

They  are  country  women,  and  their  critic  is  probably  a 
purist — somebody  who  has  studied  Greek  as  it  is  pronounced 
and  spoken  in  Athens.  But  the  women  bravely  resent  this 
interference  with  their  rights. 

Gorgo.  "Indeed!  And  where  may  this  person  come 
from?  What  is  it  to  you  if  we  are  chatterboxes'?  Give 
orders  to  your  own  servants,  sir.  Do  you  pretend  to  com- 
mand the  ladies  of  Syracuse?  If  you  must  know,  we  are 
Corinthians  by  descent,  like  Bellerophon  himself,  and  we 
speak  Peloponnesian.  Dorian  women  may  lawfully  speak 
Doric,  I  presume." 

This  is  enough  to  silence  the  critic,  but  the  other  young 
woman  also  turns  upon  him,  and  we  may  suppose  that 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS  381 

he  is  glad  to  escape  from  their  tongues.  And  then  every- 
body becomes  silent,  for  the  religious  services  begin.  The 
priestess,  a  comely  girl,  chants  the  psalm  of  Adonis,  the 
beautiful  old  pagan  hymn,  more  beautiful  and  more  sensu- 
ous than  anything  uttered  by  the  later  religious  poets  of 
the  West;  and  all  listen  in  delighted  stillness.  As  the  hymn 
ends,  Gorgo  bursts  out  in  exclamation  of  praise: 

"Praxinoe!  The  woman  is  cleverer  than  we  fancied! 
Happy  woman  to  know  so  much! — Thrice  happy  to  have 
so  sweet  a  voice !  Well,  all  the  same,  it  is  time  to  be  mak- 
ing for  home;  Diocleides  has  not  had  his  dinner,  and  the 
man  is  all  vinegar, — don't  venture  near  him  when  he  is 
kept  waiting  for  dinner.  Farewell,  beloved  Adonis — may 
you  find  us  glad  at  your  next  coming." 

And  with  this  natural  mingling  of  the  sentimental  and 
the  commonplace  the  little  composition  ends.  It  is  as 
though  we  were  looking  through  some  window  into  the  life 
of  two  thousand  years  ago.  Read  the  whole  thing  over  to 
yourselves  when  you  have  time  to  find  the  book  in  the 
library,  and  see  how  true  to  human  nature  it  is.  There  is 
nothing  in  it  except  the  wonderful  hymn,  which  does  not 
belong  to  today  as  much  as  to  the  long  ago,  to  modern  Tokyo 
as  much  as  to  ancient  Greece.  That  is  what  makes  the  im- 
mortality of  any  literary  production — not  simply  truth  to 
the  life  of  one  time,  but  truth  to  the  life  of  every  time  and 
place. 

Not  many  years  ago  there  was  discovered  a  book  by 
Herodas,  a  Greek  writer  of  about  the  same  period.  It  is 
called  the  "Mimes,"  a  series  of  little  dramatic  studies  pic- 
turing the  life  of  the  time.  One  of  these  is  well  worthy 
of  rank  with  the  idyl  of  Theocritus  above  mentioned.  It  is 
the  study  of  a  conversation  between  a  young  woman  and  an 
old  woman.  The  young  woman  has  a  husband,  who  left 
her  to  join  a  military  expedition  and  has  not  been  heard 
of  for  several  years.  The  old  woman  is  a  go-between,  and 
she  comes  to  see  the  young  person  on  behalf  of  another 


88£  OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS 

young  man,  who  admires  her.  But  as  soon  as  she  states 
the  nature  of  her  errand,  the  young  lady  becomes  very  angry 
and  feigns  much  virtuous  indignation.  There  is  a  quarrel. 
Then  the  two  become  friends,  and  we  know  that  the  old 
woman's  coming  is  likely  to  bring  about  the  result  de- 
sired. Now  the  wonder  of  this  little  study  also  is  the 
play  of  emotion  which  it  reveals.  Such  emotions  are  com- 
mon to  all  ages  of  humanity;  we  feel  the  freshness  of  this 
reflection  as  we  read,  to  such  a  degree  that  we  cannot  think 
of  the  matter  as  having  happened  long  ago.  Yet  even  the 
city  in  which  these  episodes  took  place  has  vanished  from 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

In  the  case  of  the  studies  of  peasant  life,  there  is  also 
value  of  another  kind.  Here  we  have  not  only  studies  of 
human  nature,  but  studies  of  particular  social  conditions. 
The  quarrels  of  peasants,  half  good  natured  and  nearly  al- 
ways happily  ending;  their  account  of  their  sorrows;  their 
gossip  about  their  work  in  the  fields — all  this  might  happen 
almost  anywhere  and  at  almost  any  time.  But  the  song 
contest,  the  prize  given  for  the  best  composition  upon  a 
chosen  subject,  this  is  particularly  Greek,  and  has  never  per- 
haps existed  outside  of  some  place  among  the  peasant  folk. 
It  was  the  poetical  side  of  this  Greek  life  of  the  peasants,  as 
recorded  by  Theocritus,  which  so  much  influenced  the  litera- 
tures of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  in  France 
and  in  England.  But  neither  in  France  nor  in  England  has 
there  ever  really  been  at  any  time,  any  life  resembling  that 
portrayed  by  Theocritus;  today  nothing  appears  to  us  more 
absurd  than  the  eighteenth  century  habit  of  picturing  the 
Greek  shepherd  life  in  English  or  French  landscapes. 
What  really  may  have  existed  among  the  shepherds  of  the 
antique  world  could  not  possibly  exist  in  modern  times. 
But  how  pretty  it  is !  I  think  that  the  tenth  idyl  of  Theoc- 
ritus is  perhaps  the  prettiest  example  of  the  whole  series, 
thirty  in  number,  which  have  been  preserved  for  us.  The 
plan  is  of  the  simplest.     Two  young  peasants,  respectively 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS  383 

named  Battus  and  Milon,  meeting  together  in  the  field,  talk 
about  their  sweethearts.  One  of  them  works  lazily  and  is 
jeered  by  the  other  in  consequence.  The  subject  of  the  jeer- 
ing acknowledges  that  he  works  badly  because  his  mind  is 
disturbed — he  has  fallen  in  love.  Then  the  other  expresses 
sympathy  for  him,  and  tells  him  that  the  best  thing  he  can 
do  to  cheer  himself  up  will  be  to  make  a  song  about  the  girl, 
and  to  sing  it  as  he  works.  Then  he  makes  a  song,  which 
has  been  the  admiration  of  the  world  for  twenty  centuries 
and  has  been  translated  into  almost  every  language  pos- 
sessing a  literature. 

"They  call  thee  gipsy,  gracious  Bombica,  and  lean,  and 
sunburnt; — 'tis  only  I  that  call  thee  honey-pale. 

Yea,  and  the  violet  is  swart  and  swart  the  lettered  Hya- 
cinth; but  yet  these  flowers  are  chosen  the  first  in  gar- 
lands. 

The  goat  runs  after  cytisus,  the  wolf  pursues  the  goat, 
the  crane  follows  the  plough, — but  I  am  wild  for  love  of 
thee. 

Would  it  were  mine,  all  the  wealth  whereof  Croesus 
was  lord,  as  men  tell!  Then  images  of  us,  all  in  gold, 
should  be  dedicated  to  Aphrodite,  thou  with  thy  flute  and  a 
rose,  yea,  or  an  apple,  and  I  in  fair  attire  and  new  shoon 
of  Amyclae  on  both  my  feet. 

Ah,  gracious  Bombica,  thy  feet  are  like  carven  ivory, 
thy  voice  is  drowsy  sweet,  and  thy  ways — I  can  not  tell  of 
them." 

Even  through  the  disguise  of  an  English  prose  translation, 
you  will  see  how  pretty  and  how  simple  this  little  song 
must  have  been  in  the  Greek,  and  how  very  natural  is  the 
language  of  it.  Our  young  peasant  has  fallen  in  love  with 
the  girl  who  is  employed  to  play  the  flute  for  the  reapers, 
as  the  peasants  like  to  work  to  the  sound  of  music.  His 
comrades  do  not  much  admire  Bombica ;  one  calls  her  "a  long 
grasshopper  of  a  girl";  another  finds  her  too  thin;  a  third 
calls  her  a  gipsy,  such  a  dark  brown  her  skin  has  become 


384  OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS 

by  constant  exposure  to  the  summer  sun.  And  the  lover, 
looking  at  her,  is  obliged  to  acknowledge  in  his  own  mind 
that  she  is  long  and  lean  and  dark  and  like  a  gipsy;  but  he 
finds  beauty  in  all  these  characteristics,  nevertheless.  What, 
if  she  is  dark4?  The  sweetest  honey  is  darkish,  like  amber, 
and  so  are  beautiful  flowers,  the  best  of  all  flowers,  flowers 
given  to  Aphrodite ;  and  the  sacred  hyacinth  on  whose  leaves 
appear  the  letters  of  the  word  of  lamentation  "Ai !  Ai !" — 
that  is  also  dark  like  Bombica.  Her  darkness  is  that  of 
honey  and  flowers.  What  a  charming  apology!  He  can- 
not deny  that  she  is  long  and  lean,  and  he  remains  silent 
on  these  points,  but  here  we  must  all  sympathize  with  him. 
He  shows  good  taste.  It  is  the  tall  slender  girl  that  is  really 
the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  graceful,  not  the  large- 
limbed,  strong-bodied  peasant  type  that  his  companions 
would  prefer.  Without  knowing  it,  he  has  fallen  in  love 
like  an  artist.  And  he  is  not  blind  to  the  grace  of  slender- 
ness  and  of  form,  though  he  cannot  express  it  in  artistic  lan- 
guage. He  can  only  compare  the  shape  of  the  girl's  feet  to 
the  ivory  feet  of  the  divinities  in  the  temples — perhaps  he 
is  thinking  of  some  ivory  image  of  Aphrodite  which  he  has 
seen.  But  how  charming  an  image  does  he  make  to  arise 
before  us!  Beautiful  is  the  description  of  the  girl's  voice 
as  "drowsy  sweet."  But  the  most  exquisite  thing  in  the 
whole  song  is  the  final  despairing  admission  that  he  cannot 
describe  her  at  all — "and  thy  ways,  I  cannot  tell  of  them" ! 
This  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  expressions  in  any  poem 
ancient  or  modern,  because  of  its  supreme  truth.  What 
mortal  ever  could  describe  the  charm  of  manner,  voice, 
smile,  address,  in  mere  words'?  Such  things  are  felt,  they 
cannot  be  described;  and  the  peasant  boy  reaches  the  high- 
est height  of  true  lyrical  poetry  when  he  cries  out  "I  can- 
not tell  of  them."  The  great  French  critic  Sainte-Beuve 
attempted  to  render  this  line  as  follows — "Quant  a  la 
maniere,  je  ne  puis  la  rendreV  This  is  very  good;  and  you 
can  take  your  choice  between  it  and  any  English  transla- 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS  385 

tion.     But  good  judges  say  that  nothing  in  English  or 
French  equals  the  charm  of  the  original. 

You  will  find  three  different  classes  of  idyls  in  Theocritus ; 
the  idyl  which  is  a  simple  song  of  peasant  life,  a  pure  lyric 
expressing  only  a  single  emotion;  the  idyl  which  is  a  little 
story,  usually  a  story  about  the  gods  or  heroes;  and  lastly, 
the  idyl  which  is  presented  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue,  or  even 
of  a  conversation  between  three  or  four  persons.  All  these 
forms  of  idyl,  but  especially  the  first  and  the  third,  were 
afterward  beautifully  imitated  by  the  Roman  poets;  then 
very  imperfectly  imitated  by  modern  poets.  The  imitation 
still  goes  on,  but  the  very  best  English  poets  have  never 
really  been  able  to  give  us  anything  worthy  of  Theocritus 
himself. 

However,  this  study  of  the  Greek  model  has  given  some 
terms  to  English  literature  which  every  student  ought  to 
know.  One  of  these  terms  is  amcebsean, — amcebsean  poe- 
try being  dialogue  poetry  composed  in  the  form  of  question 
and  reply.  The  original  Greek  signification  was  that  of 
alternate  speaking.  Please  do  not  forget  the  word.  You 
may  often  find  it  in  critical  studies  in  essays  upon  contem- 
porary literature;  and  when  you  see  it  again,  remember 
Theocritus  and  the  school  of  Greek  poets  who  first  intro- 
duced the  charm  of  amcebsean  poetry.  I  hope  that  this 
little  lecture  will  interest  some  of  you  in  Theocritus  suffi- 
ciently to  induce  you  to  read  him  carefully  through  and 
through.  But  remember  that  you  cannot  get  the  value  of 
even  a  single  poem  of  his  at  a  single  reading.  We  have 
become  so  much  accustomed  to  conventional  forms  of  lit- 
erature that  the  simple  art  of  poetry  like  this  quite  escapes 
us  at  first  sight.  We  have  to  read  it  over  and  over  again 
many  times,  and  to  think  about  it;  then  only  we  feel  the 
wonderful  charm. 


INDEX 


"Abt  Vogler,"  222-223 

Addison,  Joseph,  122,  286 

/Eneid,  17 

yEschylus,  17 

Esthetic  creed,  189,  296-297 

Aicard,  Jean,  279-280 

"Amicus    and    Amelius,"    345-351 

"Amis  and  Amiles,"  345-351 

"Amour,   L',"    147 

Amusement,  reading  for,  2,  3,  4-5 

Anderson,    Hans,    13 

"And  the  spider  to  serve  his  ends," 

241 
"An  eager  girl  whose  father  buys," 

358 
Anecdote,  115-117 
Anthologies,   208-210,  221,   224,   226, 

355 
"Arabian  Nights,"  345 
"Archduchess    Anne,"    139-143 
Aristophanes,   17 
Arnold,    Matthew,    63,    81,    98,    103, 

183,  378 
Art,  theory  of,  288-299 
"As    a    fond    mother   when    the    day 

is  o'er,"  313 
"As  the  birds  do,  so  do  we,"  174 
"As  You  Like  It,"  251 
"Augustine  Age,"   no 
Austen,   Alfred,   337 
Authors,   15,   16-17,   33,   176 
Authors'  style,  61-68 
"Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table," 

123 

"Ballads  and  Poems  of  Tragic  Life," 

130,    131,   139 
Balzac,    Honore    de,    248,    249,    250, 

255-257 
Barnes,  William,  310 
Baudelaire,    Pierre    Charles,   77,   93, 

105,  257,  260-261 
Beckford,  William,  45 
Beddoes,   Thomas   Lovell,   200-204 
"Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci,  La,"  336 
Bertrand,  Louis,  257,  259-260 
Bible,  20,  63,  185,  260 
"Bible  in  Spain,  The,"  185 
Biographical  facts,  95 
Bion,  368,  369 

387 


"Bird  of  Passage,  A,"  107,  183 
Bizet,  Alexander  Cesar  Leopold,  184, 

253 
Bjornson,  Bjornstjerne,  31 

Blackwood's  Magazine,  19 
Blake,  William,  259 
"Blessed  Damosel,"  45 
"Blind  Emperor,  The,"  120 
Blind,   Mathilde,   315 
"Boheme   Galante,  La,"  259 
Bohn's  Library,  16 
Book  of  Job,  12 
Books,   best  hundred,   14 

choice  of,   13-14 

fashion  in,  3 

of  first  rank,  14-15 

test  of,  9,  10 

value  of  great,  10 
Borrow,    George,    181-187 
"Bouillabaisse,  La,"  118-119 
"Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,"  262-263 
Breton,   Jules,  277 
"Bride's   Prelude,"    188 
Bridges,  Robert,  228 
"Bright   Eyes,   Light  Eyes,   Daughter 

of  a  Fay!"  332 
"Bring  no  jarring  lute  this  way,"  231 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  21,  27 
Brooke,  Stopford,  80-81,  101-103,  337 
Brown,  Dr.,  122 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett,  205 
Browning,    Robert,    10,    29,    32,    130, 

139,  200,  201,  222-223,  336 
Bryant,   William   Cullen,   308-309 
Buchanan,  Robert,   331 
Bulwer  Lytton,  Edward  George,  107 
Burke,  Edmund,  61 
Burne-Jones,  Sir  Edward  C,  189 
Burton,  Richard,   316 
Byron,    Lord    George    Gordon   Noel, 
10,  23,  77,  93 

Calton,  Mr.,  77 
Cambridge  University,  80,  98 
Carew,   Thomas,   93 
Carlyle,   Thomas,   10 
"Carmen,"   253 
"Cathedrale,  La,"  261 
Causeries  du  Lundi,  88 
"Changeling,  The,"  334~335 


388 


INDEX 


Character,  21-42 

Chaucer,    Geoffrey,   67 

"Christabel,"   188 

Christianity,  poetical,  301 

Cicero,    essays   of,    113 

"Cigales,   Les,"  277-279 

Circe,  239-240 

Civilization  of  Greeks,  14,  15 

Classical,  fiction,  26;  form,  230; 
period,  no;  poetry,  308,  311 

Critical,    essays,    188;    methods,   83 

"Critical    Kit-Cats,"    97 

Criticism,  French  influence  in,  107; 
general,  83-85;  modern  Eng- 
lish, 80-107;  new  school  of,  82 

"Criticisms  and  Literary  Portraits," 
88 

Critics,  English,  80-83;  trained,  9-10 

Critiques  et  Portraits  Litteraires,  88 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  77,  188, 
247,  259 

"Colomba,"  253 

"Compania  de  uno,  compania  nin- 
guno,"  73 

Composition,  43-68 

Cone,  Helen   Gray,  316 

"Confession  d'un  Enfant  du   Siecle," 

255 
Confucius,  temple  of,  128 
Construction,  58-61,  83 
"Contemplate  the  rutted  road,"  175 
"Contemporary   Portraits,"    88 
Contemporary   relations,   80-107 
"Contes   Drolatiques,"  256 
Conventions,  67-68,  78,  83 
Co-operation,  69-70 
"Corpus   Poeticum  Boreali,"   18 
Cory,  William,  352-376 
"Cosaques     d'Autrefois,     Les,"     252- 

253 
Creative,  literature,  30;  power,  21 
"Crossing  the  Bar,"   323 

Dalton,  John,  99 

"Dame  de  Pique,  La,"  254 

Dante,  Alighieri,  n,  19,  20 

"Daphnis  and  Chloe,"  12-13,  xl 

Daudet,  Alphonse,  56,  118-121,  263 

"Daughter   of   Cleomenes,  The,"  371 

"Daughters  of  Fire,"  258 

"Dead,  The,"   315 

"Death  and  she  walked  through  the 

crowd,"   153 
Death,  poems  on,  308-323 
"Death's    Jest-Book,"    201 
Defoe,  Daniel,  187 
"Demoiselle,  La,"  269-270 
Descriptive    powers,    50-51 


"Deteriora,"  361 

Dickens,  Charles,  107,  263 

Diderot,  Denis,  62 

"Divinely   shapen   cup,   thy   lip   unto 

me,"  322 
Dobell,  Sydney,  207-212 
Doggerel-verse,  102 
"Dolores,"  232 
Dore,  Paul  Gustave,  256 
Dowden,  Edward,  80-83,  9*>  92»  94> 

95,  98-101,  in 
Dramas,  16-17,  21,  26,  36,  77,  284 
Dramatic  faculty,  28;  novels,  30,  35 
Dramatists,   19,  30 
"Dream  of  Fair  Women,  A,"  365 
"Dream-Pedlary,"   202 
"Droll    Stories    from   the   Abbeys   of 

Touraine,"  256 
Dublin  University,  80 
Dudevant,   Armandine  Lucile. 

See  George  Sands. 
Dumas,  Alexandre,  247,  248,  249,  250 


Early  English  Text  Society,  70 
"Earth  and  Man,"  164-170 
"Earthly  Paradise,"  337 
Eccentricity  of  genius,  79 
Ecclesiastical  influence,  93 
Edgeworth,  Maria,  200 
Edinburgh,    University   of,    80,   98 
"Edith  of  the  Swan-Neck,"  32 
Educational  bias,  44 
"Education  Sentimental,  L',"  262 
Effect,  imaginative,   188 
Eighteenth  century,  85,  in,  181,  182, 

230,  246,  285 
Eliot,  George,  249 
Elizabethan  form,  82,  99,  no,  230 
El-people,  324,  325 
"Emaux  et  Camees,"  248,  275 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  39,  66 
Emotional  expression,  30,  48-58,  112 
Encyclopedists,  62 
English  drama,  77 

language,    in 

religion,    18 

translations,  16,  17,  18,  19 
"Enlevement  de  la  Redoute,  L',"  254 
"Enter  these   enchanted   woods,"   161 
"En  te  voyant,  toute  mignonne,"  267 
"Eothen,"    122 
Epic  poems,  15 

"Epigramme   Funeraire,"   271-272 
Essay,   96,   98,   112-113;   critical,   188 
Euripides,   17 
European   students,   15 
Events  of  the  day,  300 


INDEX 


389 


Evolutional   philosophy,  78,  79,   145, 

169 
Expression,  emotional,  30,  48-58,  112 

"Fable,  A,"  358-361 

"Faery  Chasm,  The,"   335 

"Fair  England,"   316 

"Fairy  Foster-Mother,  The,"  331-333 

Fairy  Stories,  324-339 

"Fairy  Thorn,"  329-331,  332 

"Faust,"  18,  19,  20,  258 

"Faux  Demetrius,  Les,"  253 

"Femmes,  Les,"  147 

Ferguson,  Sir  Samuel,  329-331 

Fiction,  21,  26,  109,   188 

naturalistic,  26 

psychological,   26,   30,   32,   HI,   129 

tyranny  of,  108 
Fifteenth  century,  163,  181 
"Filles  de  Feu,  Les,"  258 
First  impressions,  53 
"Flat    as    to    an    eagle's    eye,    Earth 

hung  under  Attila,  148 
Flaubert,   Gustave,   121,  257,  261-263 
"Fleurs  du  Mai,"  260 
Folklore,  225 

"Forefather,  The,"  316-317 
"For   every  trouble   under  the  sun," 

35 
"For    he    is    in    the    lists   contentious 

with  the  elements,"  165 
"Fountain  of  Tears,  The,"  224 
Fourteenth  century,   181 
France,  Anatole,  104 
Franco-Prussian  War,  121 
French  dramatists,  19 

models,  their  influence,  99,  106,  121 
Revolution,   100 
Romantics,  246-265 
translations,  17,  18 
Froude,  James  Anthony,  46,  63,  250, 
254 

Galton,  Sir  Francis,  100,  175 

"Gaspard  de  la  Nuit,"  259 

Gautier,  Theophile,  93,  105,  248,  249, 

250-253,    274-277 
Genius,  77-79,  in,  187 
Gibbon,    Edward,    82 
Gipsies,  181-184 
"Goblin   Market,"   329 
Goethe,    Johann   Wolfgang  von,   n, 

18,  25,  38,  258 
"Golden  Ass,"    18 
Goncourt,  Edmond  de,  and  Jules  de, 

263 
Gosse,    Edmund,    80-83,    92>    95"~99> 

100-101,  in,  112,  201,  337 


"Gossip  in  a  Library,"  98 
"Grasshopper,  The,"  282 
Gray,  Thomas,  45 
"Greater  Memory,"  221-222 
Greek  civilization,  14,   15 

comedy,   17 

fragments,  old,  377-385 

Mythology,   18 
"Grillon    solitaire    ici    comme    moi," 
273 

Habit  of  reading,  4,  5,  8 

Hallam,    Henry,    87 

"Hand  and  the  Soul,"  188-191 

Harte,  Bret,  107 

"Hate  the  shadow  of  the  grain,"  163 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  107 

Heine,  Heinrich,  18,  19 

"Here  at  the  country  inn,  I  lie  in  my 

quiet  bed,"  317 
Hereida,  Jose  Maria  de,  266,  271 
"Hereward,"    32 
"Her  he  eyed;  his  judgment  was  one 

word,"   138 
Herodas,  381 
"Her   words   he   took,   her   nods   and 

winks,"  141 
Hlstoire  de  Port-Royal,  88-89 
"Histoire  du  Romantisme,"  250 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  93 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  123 
Homer,   16,  20,  44 
Horace,   17 

"Host  of  the  Air,  The,"   326-328 
"How    many   times   do    I    love   thee, 

dear?"  203 
"How's  My  Boy?"  208,  210-211 
Hugo,  Victor,  31,  86,  93,  246,  248,  269, 

270 
Humboldt,  F.  H.  Alexander,  99 
Huxley,  Thomas  Henry,  93 
"Hymn  to  Astarte,"  233,  235-236 

"Ici    git,    Etranger,    la    verte     sau- 

terelle,"   271 
"I    come    from    nothing;    but    from 

where,"   318 
"I'd     a     dream    tonight    as     I     fell 

asleep,"  310 
"Idylls   of   the    King,"    367 
"If  fate  and  nature  screen  from  me," 

361 
"If  there  were  dreams  to  sell,"  202 
Iliad,  16 
Influence,  of  French  Models,  99,  106, 

121 ;   of  reading,  5 
"In   Memoriam,"    38 
Insect   poetry,    266-283 


390 


INDEX 


Instinctive  power,   52 

"In   the   heart   there   lay  buried   for 

years,"  222 
"Invocation,  An,"  366-371 
"Ionica,"  352-376,  377 
Italian  poets,  19 
renaissance,  24 

Jansen,  Bishop,  89 

Jansenism,  89 

Japanese  authors,  33,  76 

language,  47,  65 

subjects,  1 1 9-12 1 
Johnson,  Samuel,  45,  285 
Johnson,  William. 

See    William   Cory. 
Journalism,  40,  41,  57,  88 

"Kallundborg  Church,"  335 

Keats,  John,  336 

"Keith  of   Ravelston,"  211 

Ker,  Professor,  103 

"King   Harald's   Trance,"    131-140 

Kinglake,  Alexander  William,  122 

Kingsley,  Charles,  32 

Kipling,  Rudyard,   66,   107,   123,   337 

Lamartine,   Alphonse   de,  273-274 
"Land  of  Heart's  Desire,"  338 
Lang,  Andrew,  368,  378 
Language,  47,  56,  65,  68,  in 

knowledge  of,  293-294 
Lanier,  Sidney,  63 
"Last  Contention,  The,"  158-159 
"Last  Rhyme  of  True  Thomas,"  337 
"Laus  Veneris,"  336 
"Lavengro,"  185 
Le  Fanu,  J.  Sheridan,  107 
Lemaitre,  Jules,   105,  121 
Leopardi,  Giacomo,  205-206 
Lesseps,  Count  Ferdinand  de,  158 
Lewis,  Matthew  Gregory,  336 
Libraries,  circulating,  5 
"Life  of  Shelley,"  98 
"Locked    in    blind    heaven     alooff," 

238 
Locker,  Frederick,  115 
Lombroso,  Cesare,  77-78,  79 
Longfellow,    Henry  Wadsworth,   313 
"Lorsque    dans    l'herbe    mure    aucun 

epi  ne  bouge,"  277 
Louis  XIV,  88-89 
"Lo,  upon  a  silent  hour,"  157 
Lovelace,   Richard,   281 
Love-poetry,    in 
"Love's  Eternity,"  221 
Lubbock,  Sir  John,  13-14 
Lyrical  poets,  17,  384 


Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington,  61,  63, 

83-84,  92,  104 
"Madame  Bovary,"  262 
"Main  de  Gloire,  La,"  259 
"Main  Enchantee,  La,"  259 
Malatesta,  24 
"Ma  Libellule,"  267-269 
Mandeville,  Bernard,  93 
Manuscripts,  6-8 
"Matteo  Falcone,"  56,  253-254 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,  55,  56,  93,  121, 

263,  265 
Men-of-Ietters,  104 
Meredith,  George,  29,  31,  in 

Poetry  of,  129-180 
Meredith,  Owen,  205 
Merimee,  Prosper,  56,   121,   181,  184, 

248,    249,    250,    252-255,    263, 

265 
"Mesmerism,"  241 
Meyerbeer,  Giacomo,  258 
Meynell,  Alice,  318 
Michelet,  Jules,  147,  346 
Middle  Ages,  most  beautiful  romance 

of  the,  340-351 
Milton,  John,  19 
"Mimes,"  381 
"Mimnermus    in    Church,"    353-356, 

373 
Mind,  development  of,  5 
"Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border," 

259.  336 
Modern  English,  77 
"Modern  Love,"  129 
"Modern  Poet,  The,"  318-320 
Modern  tendency,  127 
Moliere,  Jean  Baptiste  Poquelin,  19, 

20 
"Monday  Talks,"  88 
Moral  ugliness,  284-287 
Moral  weakness,  effect  of,  146-147 
Morley,  Henry,  36 
Morris,  William,   337 
"Morte  Amoureuse,  La,"  251-252 
"Morte  d'Arthur,"  19 
Moschus,  368 

"Mother's  Dream,  The,"  310 
Muller,  Dr.  Max,  46 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  248,  249-250,  255 
"My  body  was  part  of  the  sun  and 

the  dew,"  221 
Mythology,  15,  18,  127,  234 
"Mythology  of  Ancient  Greece  and 

Italy,"  16 

Napoleon  III,  121 
National  elements,  100 
Naturalistic  fiction,  26 


INDEX 


391 


"Nature,"  313 

Nerval,  Gerard  de,  77,  257-259 
"New  Year's  Day,  A,"  363-364 
Nineteenth    century,    82,    83,    91,    96, 

100,  112,  263,  274 
"Non  Nobis,"  226-227 
Nordau,  Max,  78-79 
"Northern  Antiquities,"  18 
Northern  races,  religion  of,  18 
".Northern  Studies,"  98 
"Notre  Dame,"  249 
"Not  unto  us,  O  Lord,"  226 
"Nouvelles,"  251 
Novel  reading,  4-5 

writing,  106,  108-109 
"Nuptials  of  Attila,  The,"  148-157 

Observation,  child's  method  of,  6 
"O    dear    divine    Comatas,    I    would 

that  thou  and  I,"  370 
"O'Driscoll   drove   with    a   song   the 

wild  duck  and  the  drake,"  326 
Odyssey,  16 

"Oh  that  the  road  were  longer,"  374 
Oriental  influence,  323 

language,  47 
"Orientals,"  246 

O'Shaughnessy,    Arthur,    220-225 
Ossian,  260 

"O  the  rosy  light!  it  fleets,"  177 
"O    Thou    that    swing'st    upon    the 

waving  ear,"  282 
"Our     planet     runs    through     liquid 

space,"  364 
Oxford  University,  98 

"Passing  of  Arthur,  The,"  199 

Pater,  Walter,  349 

"Peau  de  Chagrin,"  256 

Persian  poet,  23,  24 

Pessimistic  poets,  205,  206 

"Petits  Poems  en  Prose,"  260 

"Pied  de  la  Momie,  Le,"  252 

"Pied  Piper  of  Hamlin,"  336 

Philosophical  spirit,   16 

Philosophy  of  life,  166-169 

Physical  force,  295-298 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  107,  188,  260 

"Poems,"  230 

"Poems    and    Lyrics    of    the    Joy   of 

Earth,"   130 
Poems  on  Insects,  266-283 
Poetical  prose,  26,  94,  261 
Poets,  morals  of,  77-79 

pessimistic,  205,  206 
Poetry,  21,  22,  25,  32,  36,  109,  in 

classical,  233 

lyrical,  17,  384 


on  insects,  266-283 

philosophical,  233,  234 

psychological,  112 

spasmodic,  205-227 
Pope,   Alexander,  285-286 
Portraits    Contemporains,   88 
Port-Royal,  convent  of,  88-89 
Power,  instinctive,  52 
Pre-Raphaelite  School,  189,  205,  208, 

259 
Pre-Raphaelite  Society,  73 
Pre-Victorian  epoch,  248 
Problematical  fiction,  26 
Professional  critics,   103 
Prose,  108-128,  188-199 

translation,  16,  17,  18-19 

writers,  29,  30 
Provincialism,  31 
Prudishness,   93 

Psychological  fiction,  26,  30,  32,  in, 
129 

poetry,    112 
"Psychology,"  79 

"Queen  of  Spades,"  254 

"Qu'est^  ce  que  I'Art,"  288-299 

"Questions  at  Issue,"  98 

Quincey,  Thomas  de,  63,  93,  251,  260 

Quinet,  Edgar,  261 

"Rasselas,"  45 

Reade,  Charles,  183,  265 

Read,  Henri  Charles,  320-321 

Readers,   professional,   6-8 

Reading,  1-20 

"Reading  of  Earth,  A,"  130 

Realism,  theory  of,    106 

Realistic  fiction,  26 

"Reaper  and  the  Flowers,  The,"  282 

"Regent  of  Love  and  Pain,"  233 

Religious  bias,  84,  85 

Renaissance  feeling,  no 

"Reparabo,"  357 

"Resurrection,"  300-307 

"Riquet  of  the  Tuft,"  102 

Romance,  195-197 

"Romano  Lavo-lif;  or  word-book  of 

the    Gipsy-Language,"    185 
"Romans  et  Contes,"  251 
Romantic  form,  26,  82,  186,  230,  246- 

265,  308 
poets,  105 
"Romany  Rve,  The,"  185 
"Rose  Mary."   336 
Rosicrucians,  the  177 
Rossetti,  Christina,  329,  337 
Rossetti,   Dante   Gabriel,   29,   45,   54, 

105,  188-199 


392 


INDEX 


Ruskin,   John,    61,    66,   93,    126,   189, 
289 

Sainte-Beuve,  Charles  Augustin,  82- 

83,  86-92,  97,  99,  248 
Saintsbury,   Professor  George,   8,   63, 

80-83,  91,  94-95,  99,  104,  in, 

261 
"Salammbo,"  262 
Sands,  George,  248-250,  255 
Satire,  285-287 

"Scenes  de  la  Vie  Orientale,"  258 
"Scheveningen    Avenue,"    373-375 
"Scholar-Gipsy,   The,"   183 
Scholarship,  48,   98 
Scott,   Sir  Walter,   18,  247,  259,  292, 

325.  335-336 
Self-training,  31 
Seventeenth  century,  88,  98,  246 
Shakespeare,  William,  11,  19,  20,  27, 

77 
"Shaving  of  Shagpat,  The,"  129 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  77,  81,  336 
Sherman,  Frank  Dempster,  322 
"Short  History  of  French  Literature," 

81 
Short  Story,  106-107 
"Should  such  a  man,  too  fond  to  rule 

alone,"  286 
Siebold,   Philipp  Franz  von,   1 19-120 
"Silence,"  188 
"Silences,  The,"  221 
"Sing,  poet,  'tis  a  merry  world,"  212 
"Sister  Helen,"  208 
Sixteenth  century,  163,  246,  257 
Sketch,  107,  112-119,   122-128 
Smith,  Alexander,  205,  212-220 
Societies,  use  and  abuse  of,  69-76 
Sociology,  69 
"So    live,    that    when    thy    summons 

comes,"  309 
"Song  of  Roland,"  no 
Sophocles,  17 
"Souffle,       bise!     Tombe       a      flots, 

pluie!"  275 
Southey,  Robert,  184,  336 
Spasmodic     school     of     poetry,     205- 

227 
"Specimens    of    French    Literature," 

261 
Spencer,  Herbert,  69,  79,  91,  100,  172, 

175 
Spiritual   meteorology,   99 
"St.  Agnes  of  Intercession,"   192-194 
Steele,  Sir  Richard,  122 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  107,  122 
"Still   he   heard,   and   dog-like,   hog- 
like, ran,"  135 


"Study  of  a  Spider,"  241-245 

Superstition,  324-339 

"Sweet  eyes,  that  aim  a  level  shaft," 

375 
Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  29,  64, 

93,  105,  129,  336 
"Sword     in     length     a     raping-hook 

amain,"  132 


Tabley,  Lord  de,  96,  221,  228-245 

Taine,    Hippolyte,   90 

"Tales  of  Wonder,"  336 

"Tamango,"  253,  254 

"Tarn  lin,"  329 

"Targum,"   185 

Tea-ceremonies,   33 

Tennyson,    Lord   Alfred,    16,    29,    38, 

46,  54,  64,  247,  336,  361,  367 
"Tentation    de    Saint    Antoine,"    262 
"Terrible  Temptation,"   183 
Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  29, 

118,  122 
"Thanatopsis,"  308-309 
"The  dead  abide  with  us!     Though 

stark  and  cold,"  315 
"The  high  that  proved  too  high,"  222 
"The     merry     maidens     four     have 

ranged  them  in  a  row,"  330 
Theocritus,  17,  367-369,  377,  381,  385 
"The   plunging   rocks,   whose   raven- 
ous throats,"  372 
"The  roads  he  cannot  measure,"  371 
"The      thing     that     shudders     most 

within  him,"  167 
"The    world    will    rob    me    of    my 

friends,"   357 
Thompson,  James,  205,  206,  221 
"Though   thou   love  her   as   thyself," 

39 
"Three     Singers     to    Young    Blood, 

The,"  173-179 

"Thundered  then  her  lord  of  thun- 
ders," 144 

"  'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost," 
361 

Tolstoi,  Count  Leo  Nikolatevitch, 
288-299,  300-307 

"To  Lucasta  on  going  to  the  Wars," 
281 

"Tommy's  Dead,"  208-210 

Translations,  16,  17,  18,  19 

Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  95 

Trinity  College,  Dublin,  98 

"Trois  Contes,"  262 

Turgueniev,  Ivan,  300,  301 

Turner,    Charles   Tennyson,    311-31* 

"Twelfth  Night,"  251 


INDEX 


393 


"Twice  the  sun  had  mounted,  twice 

had  sunk,"  134 
"Two  Fragments  of  Childhood,"  362- 

363 

Ugliness,  moral,  284-287 
Universal  rule,  45 
University  of  Edinborough,  80 
University  training,  4,  31,  34 

"Venus  d'llle,  La,"  2  c?,  254 
Verse  translations,   16 
Victorian  poetry,  106,  248,  353 

spasmodics,    205-227 
Villon,  Francois,  77 
Virgil,   17 

Voltaire,  Francois  Marie  Arouet  de, 
62 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russel,   315 

Warren,  John  Byrne  Leicester. 
See  Lord  De  Tabley. 

"What !    phantoms    are    we,   spectre- 
thin,"  316 

"When    the    four    quarters    of    the 
world  shall  rise,"  312 


"When   these   locks  were  yellow   as 

gold,"  362 
Whitman,  Walt,  97 
Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  333 
"Who  ne'er  his  bread  in  sorrow  ate," 

39 
"Why  creakest  thou,  Tithonus?"  365 
"Woodland    Grave,    A,"    231-232 
"Woods  of  Westermain,"  160-163 
Wordsworth,  William,  247,  335 
Writing,  3-4 
Wycliffe,  John,  67,  93 

Yeats,  William  Butler,  325,  338 
"Yet  this  inconstancy  is  such,"  281 
"You  may  give  over  plough,  boys," 

208 
"Young  captain  of  a  crazy  bark,"  158 
"Young    Sir    Guyon    proudly    said," 

102 
"You    promise    Heavens    free    from 

strife,"    354 

"Zincali ;  or  an  Account  of  the  Gip- 
sies in  Spain,  The,"  185 
Zola,  Emile,  9-10,  hi,  264-265 


14  DAY  USE 

-"LOAH-DEPr" 


sasssssi"  JOL itishlJ: 


LD  2lA-45m-9,'67 
(H5067sl0)476B 


General  Library     , 
University  of  California 

Berkeley 


YD  ?fe&34 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


